BY BONIFACE Okeke

A group under the aegis, Anambra Progressive and Good Governance Association has urged Anambra state governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo to restrain his media aides from blackmailing and intimidating those who criticise programmes and actions of the government.

The association in the statement rather urged the governor to listen to critical views as such would help his government correct its mistakes, and, in the process deliver in a manner that would uplift the welfare of the people and develop the state.

The association in a statement issued by the President, Mr. Ifeanyi Nweke, a lawyer threw their weight behind the member representing Awka-North/Awka-South federal constituency of the state, Prof. Lilian Orogbu for condemning the harassment of street hawkers and wanton destruction of their goods by agents of the state government.

Stating that Soludo's media team had following the federal lawmakers condemnation of the action of the state government's agents unleashed media war against her, levelling all manners of allegations against her stated that the group had investigated the allegations and found them to be false.

The association stated for instance, that contrary to the claims by some of Soludo's media aides that Prof Orogbu received N200million from the federal government to purchase rice and distribute to her constituents during the last Christmas celebration, but, that she distributed only 120 bags of rice, they have investigated and found the allegations to be false.

The group stated that their investigations rather showed that the federal lawmaker procured a total of 2,570 bags of rice which were distributed to the constituents in the 34 wards, and, that even non-natives, physically challenged persons, women groups, widows, community leaders, youth leaders confirmed the gesture.

The association also particularly condemned the derogatory article against the federal lawmaker authored by one of the governor's media aide captioned, "Lilian Orogbu: A beauty pageant or federal lawmaker", stating that such article was vain, baseless and advised that the governor's media aide should rather be professional in their engagements to avoid landing themselves into the troubles of Cybercrime Act, 2015.

"We advise Prof Soludo to restrain his media aides from attacking members of the opposition parties; rather, he should collaborate with them to develop Anambra, after all, the final beneficiaries are all Ndi-Anambra", the group urged.

They warned that spreading misinformation about opposition voices to silence them would be counterproductive to the development efforts of the government.