Mr Oseloka Obaze, the governorship candidate of the People Democratic Party (PDP) in Anambra has warned other PDP candidates, political parties and their supporters to eschew politics of bitterness and campaign of calumny.
Obaze made the call in a statement made available to newsmen in Awka, the state capital, on Tuesday.
He decried the alleged smear campaigns targeted at discrediting his person and the process of his emergence as the PDP candidate in the upcoming election in the state.
He said that although political parties and their candidates enjoyed the right to freely sell their manifestoes to the electorate, others reserved the right to seek redress whenever they felt slandered under the guise of campaign.
He said: “My attention has been drawn to various malicious reports on social media platforms aimed at tarnishing my image and credibility as the candidate of the PDP in the forthcoming election.
“Such reckless postings constitute fake news, hate speeches and inciting words,” Obaze said.
According to him, “the malicious reports range from allusions that I fraudulently won the PDP primaries, which was nationally televised, to my going to take an oath of allegiance in a shrine and, of late, that I was admitted in a psychiatric hospital overseas.
“Rather than focus on campaign issues, they resort to campaign of calumny,” he said, adding that there were acceptable limits to propaganda.
The PDP governorship hopeful further said that he remained committed to issue-based campaign, in spite of the fact that he had access to damaging information about other contestants.
“I hereby reiterate my commitment to run a campaign free of fake news, hate speech and calumny. I will dismiss anyone on my team who engages in such unacceptable conducts.
“I hope other governorship candidates will publicly make a similar commitment,” Obaze said.