The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has described the purported probe of former Chairman of the National Hajj Commission (NAHCON) Mr Dhikrullah Hassan by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as fake news.
Prof. Ishaq Akintola, the Executive Director, MURIC, stated this in a statement on Friday in Abuja.
“An online media house on Monday, Feb. 26 published a story where it claimed that the former chairman of the National Hajj Commission (NAHCON), Barrister Dhikrullah Hassan, was invited and grilled for hours by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
“As a human rights outfit dedicated to the pursuit of truth, we did our homework before reacting. Our findings reveal that the story was a hatchet job. Somebody somewhere wanted to puncture the good works of Dhikrullah Hassan.
“But they failed woefully. This online media house has succeeded in exposing itself as pedestrian, jejune and subatomic.
“The interviews conducted by MURIC exposed the authors as pathological liars because whereas they claimed that the six executive secretaries of the pilgrims board in the South-West wrote a petition against Barrister Dhikrullah Hassan, such a thing never happened and those interviewed denied writing such a petition,” Akintola said.
He added: “They said there was no reference at all to the former chairman of NAHCON because what they wrote was not even a petition but an appeal to the authorities to pay their emoluments for the 2022 hajj which was disrupted by COVID-19.
“They were also aware that the delay in the payment was due to the usual bureaucracy for which ministries and agencies are well known and over which the ex-NAHCON chief executive had no power.
“One of those we spoke with described the former chairman, Dhikrullah Hassan, as ‘…A very nice man. He is our father … We wrote no petition against him.
“We therefore wonder where the media house got its cock and bull story from. It is clearly a hatchet job concocted from their figment of imagination. It is nothing but a product of yellow journalism designed to tarnish the good name of a man of integrity. We cannot rule out a developing campaign of calumny still in its embryo stage.”
“It is as clear as daylight that the story is fake, odious, odoriferous and a lie from the pit of Jahannam. Those behind it are petty, mean, mischievous and cowards.
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“Barrister Dhikrullah Hassan is a worthy ambassador of Nigerian Muslims. He stands on the same pedestal with Professor Ishaq Oloyede, Professor Ali Isa Pantami, Mallam Adamu Adamu, etc. It is our duty as an Islamic human rights organization to challenge and expose mischief makers who attempt to tarnish the reputation of heroes of the Nigerian Muslim Ummah.
“MURIC therefore warns those behind such diabolical plot to desist and rethink because we will not hesitate to go all out after them if they persist in their luciferous ways”. (NAN)
