Senate President Godswill Akpabio did not slump and was not rushed to hospital on Thursday as claimed in a media report, his Special Adviser on Media, Hon. Eseme Eyiboh, has said.
Eyiboh said this in a Friday statement.
An online newspaper, Sahara Reporters, reported that Akpabio slumped at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja and was rushed to the hospital on Thursday.
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The report said the incident occurred as the Senate President was seeing off President Bola Tinubu at the end of Akpabio’s 61st birthday colloquium held at the hotel.
“He was briefly stabilised before being rushed to the NNPC hospital in Abuja where he was wheeled into a special room on a stretcher,” the newspaper quoted an unnamed source as saying.
Reacting to the report, the Senate Presidenti’s media aide said, “The rumours which have come to our notice through word of mouth from concerned and patriotic stakeholders have been fanned by some social media news channels with notoriety for the dissemination of phony newsflashes.
“It was especially disconcerting that the conjectures on the wellbeing of the Senate President came after he was celebrated by the crème-de-crème of the nation’s leadership across all sectors at the Colloquium that was focused on defining a legislative agenda for national development.”
Eyiboh added, “Senator Akpabio spoke on his feet for more than 30 minutes as he gave the expose` of his trajectory in a way as never before.
“As the programme ended and President Bola Tinubu left the Transcorp Hotel venue, Senator Akpabio’s expression to some of those around him that he was tired was escalated to a fainting spell or collapse.
“Some more adventurous purveyors of untruth in their thrilling escapade of fiction even claimed that he is presently hospitalized and in a critical condition in the National Hospital, Abuja.”
“This is wholly untrue and I declare firmly that besides saying he was exhausted in the hearing of those around him that he was certainly not rushed in a stretcher to the national hospital or indisposed.”