The attention of the Forum has been drawn to a news report on the front page of Thisday newspaper of Wednesday, November 24, 2010 titled, Revealed: Atiku  Defeated IBB by Just One Vote! A similar story was carried by other newspapers claiming to know the pattern of voting in the Forum's Consensus Committee which selected Atiku Abubakar at the conclusion of its assignment on Monday, November  22, 2010.

The authors of Thisday's report, Imam Imam, Chuks Okocha, Onyebuchi Ezigbo and John Shilam who wrote from Lagos, Abuja and Kaduna respectively, claimed to have known which members of the Consensus Committee voted for which candidates using evasive attributions such as "Thisday can report", "It has also emerged" etc. The Forum would have totally ignored the report if the paper did not also attribute its story to "a source, who witnessed the vote."

For the avoidance of doubt, the NPLF Consensus Committee has finished its job and does not wish to be drawn into unnecessary controversy with paid agents of the State who thrive on patronage from any government in power. But the reference to "a source who witnessed the vote" has made this rejoinder necessary. Unknown to the peddlers of this false report I, Bello Sabo Abdulkadir, Secretary to the Consensus Committee was the only person present, who was not a member of the Committee, when the voting to choose the consensus candidate took place. Yet, even I have no idea which member of the Committee voted for which candidate simply because the voting was by secret ballot and no member volunteered any information to that effect.

But the report in question fail all known tenets of responsible journalism in the sense that none of the reporters mentioned above spoke to me or to any member of the Consensus Committee. As a matter of fact each of the members of the Committee has assured me that they have never met with any of the reporters nor spoken to any reporter since the conclusion of the process. How then did the reporters come about their vote count, not to talk of matching votes and voters to specific candidates? The report is, to say the least, highly irresponsible and regrettable.

I would like to seize this opportunity to apologize to all whose hard earned reputation this report seeks to tarnish, especially the aspirants who submitted themselves to the Consensus process. We all know the rotten depth to which the profession of journalism has descended whereby anyone with money can buy a story no matter how implausible or how absurd. We also know the identity of those who seek to benefit from this kind of reportage. They should know that those who live by the sword are bound to die by it.

Bello Sabo Abdulkadir