I was not duped N5bn in Dubai – Governor Lalong

Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau state has described a report credited to an online news platform, Meganews, that he was duped of the sum of N5billion in Dubai while trying to buy property as  “laughable, malicious, mischievous and a figment of the writer’s imagination”.

In a statement issued Monday, June 27, in Jos and signed by Mark Longyen, the governor’s senior special assistant on media and publicity, Lalong said the story was a mere piece of thrash that should be ignored by reasonable people, The Nation reports. According to him, the story is the handiwork of his critics desperate to paint him black.

The governor went ahead to challenge the authors of the story to produce and publish documentary evidence, if any, from the records of their investigation and show proof as to when and where the N5billion Dubai property transaction took place. ‪

The statement read: “Ordinarily, the Governor would have ignored such malicious falsehood which, if read between the lines, is clearly the handiwork of his detractors and opposition political elements desperate to paint him black, but has chosen to respond to it in order not to give credibility to such brazen falsehood and to clear the air for the sake of some gullible members of the public, who might innocently swallow this bait hook, line and sinker. ‪

”The Governor, therefore, denies this wanton, malicious and mischievous report in its entirety and challenges the authors of the story to produce and publish documentary evidence, if any, from the records of their investigation and show proof as to when and where the five billion naira Dubai property transaction took place, which bank was used, as well as all the parties involved, failing which they will face the music as relevant security agencies will be called in to investigate the source of the story.” ‪

The statement further wondered “what kind of a professional journalist would credit the source of his story ‎to information he/she claimed to have only picked “from an open discussion at a public centre,” if the author is not a quack and a harbinger of a hatched job aimed mainly to impugn the integrity of the Governor and bring him to disrepute.”

‪He admonished the public to beware and not fall victims of such malicious reports emanating from such unregulated online media outfits “that may be sponsored and disseminated by past government officials who are being investigated for corruption.”

But despite the cash crunch facing Plateau state, an investigation by Daily Trust has shown that Governor Lalong has spent millions of naira from public funds on foreign trips in the name of seeking foreign investors. It was gathered that Lalong has made six foreign trips to Brazil, Israel, China, Dubai so far but all without any official announcement to that effect.

Just few weeks after he was sworn in last year, Lalong went to Brazil on a two-week visit. He was also in Israel last year for a two-week visit which he said was to pray for the country. The state PDP chairman, Ramond Dabo, said Lalong’s trips were “secret and worrisome.”