The Lagos Police command has reacted to a viral report that held that a lady died due to infection after sleeping with a dog.
The police in a statement released on Friday, May 13 disclosed that they reached out to the author of the online publication and he couldn’t prove the veracity of the information rather he said he copied it from another blog.
The command added that the author is not only guilty of misinforming the public but also committed plagiarism by lifting an article from another blog to his without giving credit to the original source.
Speaking further, the state police spokesperson, Benjamin Hundeyin warned against disseminating false reports while dismissing the claim as false.
The statement read:
“The attention of the Lagos State Police Command has been drawn to a publication with the above caption dated May 10, 2022 and credited to one Kayode Ajiboye of Independent Newspapers.
As this borders on an ongoing police investigation, the Lagos State Police Command reached out to the author of this article for information that would help the police conclude/close the investigation. Shockingly, however, the author claimed he could not verify the story but simply lifted it from an online blog. Not only did this author not credit the original source (plagiarism) of the news in consonance with simple ethics of journalism, he also made no attempt to fact-check the news, thereby making himself susceptible to the spreading of fake news, especially knowing how critical and sensitive the facts in issue were.
Available facts suggests that the author is in cahoot with the wanted suspect to help her evade justice, which in itself is a criminal offence.
While it is the duty of every Nigerian to support the police in any ongoing investigation, it is an established fact that it is criminal to publish false information with intent to mislead the public. It is equally criminal to subvert criminal investigation and obstruct police officers in the discharge of their duties.
In line with its stance on transparency, the Lagos State Police Command brings this update to Nigerians and gives assurances that the ongoing investigation has been re-focused appropriately. While available leads are being followed, the Command encourages anyone with useful information on the matter to make same available to the police using any of our available communication channels.”
KanyiDaily also recalls that comedian, Mr Macaroni slammed Atiku Abubakar for deleting the posts he made condemning the killing of Deborah Samuel in Sokoto.
