• Says Online Medium Failed Basic Journalism Ethics Test   

By Angeline Mgbele, Senior Correspondent , Abuja

The Management, Board and Staff  of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has denied the purported death of the Statistician General of the Federation, Dr. Simon Harry, by an online medium, yesterday, saying the report verifies irresponsible journalism and has failed the fundamental ethics test of the profession.

A statement to which Cyber Era NG is privy, signed by the Director, Communication and Public Relations Department of the NBS,  Ichedi, Sunday Joel credits the purported false news of the demise of Dr. Harry to https://www. africandrumnews.wordpress.com.

“The Bureau wishes to state that there is no iota of truth in what was published by the online medium and considers the publication as the height of irresponsible journalism and a figment of the imagination of the publisher. Journalism ethics require that any journalist should check the fact and be sure of the veracity of his information before publishing. The reverse was the case here,” Mr. Ichedi says.

He went further to say: “Now the fact of the matter is that the Statistician General was slightly indisposed on Saturday and following medication, is now recuperating. We are well certain that he would, in a matter of few days, be back to his desk  and  continue his work in repositioning the NBS as the foremost national statistics agency in Africa and among the best globally. We are all mortals and by nature sometimes get weary. That is the case of the Statistician General now and it is not unusual for anybody to get sometimes get weary in the course of daily endeavours.

We are using this to advice the general public to completely discountenance the purported death of the Statistician General by a disreputable online medium, which has been noted for ‘irresponsible and fake news journalism’ since it deputed.

While thanking those that have expressed concern about the health situation of the Statistician General in the past few hours following the ‘junk’ from the online medium, we are urging our other media to kindly disseminate the content of this press release as widely as possible in line with best industry practices.”