The choice of the President’s new Chief of Staff after Abba Kyari has been one of the recent topics of political dialogues.
However, since Friday, political analyses have been carried out by newspapers, including POLITICS NIGERIA, on who to succeed late Abba Kyari. Many analysts have listed possible successors who stand the chance of being appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
This paper reported how Mr Kyari, who battled Coronavirus till the point of death, gave up the ghost at a private facility in Lagos on Friday night. His corpse was buried at Gudu Cemetery in Abuja on Saturday morning.
Meanwhile, misinformation has surfaced on whether or not the President has announced a new aide in replacement of late Kyari.
In its support for an accountable media, this paper conducted a fact check on these claims.
CLAIM: An online newspaper National Daily Newspaper on Saturday 18th April 2020 reported on both her website and Facebook page that President Muhammadu Buhari had appointed Amb. Babagana Kingibe as his new Chief of Staff.
The online paper said that has been acting as Chief of Staff since late Abba Kyari was hospitalised, Buhari allowed Kingibe to continue as confirmed Chief of Staff.
Also, POLITICS NIGERIA found out that the same claim was posted on Twitter and expounded with the publication from National Daily newspaper.
https://twitter.com/fagge_iliyasu/status/1251597759746056199?s=19
VERIFICATION: Although there are speculations that Kingibe, a political ally of Buhari and a friend to late Kyari, stands a chance of being appointed, there are no credible reports to support that.
As a matter of fact, neither the President nor his aides have made any official announcement on the appointment of the new Chief of Staff as of the time of writing this report on Monday 20th April 2020.
Further examination of the story on National Daily Newspaper shows that it is devoid of a source or attribution.
Also, the place and time of the activity, as expected of journalistic work, were missing in the report as it ended the story with a phrase “details shortly”. Meanwhile, two days after it promised to add more details to the story, it has not been updated with necessary facts.
VERDICT: Since there is no credible evidence to support it at the moment, claims that President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed a new Chief of Staff is FALSE.
