Premium Times has denied having a hand in the death of former Governor of Bayelsa State Diepreye Alamieyeseigha as being alleged in some quarters.
It would be recalled that many had accused the online newspaper of aiding his death with a false report of his extradition request by the United Kingdom.
In a press statement, Musikilu Mojeed, Managing Editor referred to a report in Source Magazine in which it denied ever making a fresh report on his extradition and therefore could not be linked to his death.
Part of the statement read: “Our attention has been drawn to a recent publication by The Source Magazine, with a Cover Story entitled: ” Alamieyeseigha: How False Story Killed Him”.
“In the said story, the magazine, owned by Comfort Obi, insinuated that the recent death of a former Governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, penultimate week, was triggered by a purported story published by PREMIUM TIMES that the British government made a request to the Nigerian government for the extradition of the former governor to the United Kingdom to face money laundering charges.
“The magazine specifically stated: ‘An online portal, PREMIUM TIMES had recently rehashed its March 28, 2013 story and presented it to unsuspecting readers as fresh. A section of the traditional media also strangely keyed into the PREMIUM TIMES stale story and published it as fresh. Quoting the immediate past British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Andrew Pocock, PREMIUM TIMES had reported that the UK government was interested in extraditing Alamieyeseigha to stand trial and that a request had already been made to the federal government to that effect”.
“To say that the story carried by the magazine on this subject and its direct reference to PREMIUM TIMES is shocking is to say the least. In the first instance, PREMIUM TIMES never published any such story in its recent publications. The last time a story was published on a proposed extradition of the deceased governor was on March 28, 2013. The story entitled: “Britain writes FG, requests ex-convict Alamieyeseigha’s extradition to London” was a reportage of the request made on the subject by the British government. The circumstances surrounding the story and the personalities quoted in it are clearly different from the realities of today and nothing should have made The Source Magazine come to the conclusion that the story was a recent publication of our newspaper. ”