- Nwoko said delegates were fully funded with transport, feeding, and lodging, dismissing claims of abandonment.
- He insisted there was no promise or agreement to pay monetary compensation to those attending the hearing.
The chairman of the Senate Committee on Reparations and Repatriation and senator representing Delta North, Ned Nwoko, has denied reports that he abandoned Anioma State delegates during the recent Constitution Review hearing in Enugu.
He made this known on Monday in a statement issued by his Media Office, describing the online report as “falsehood and sensationalism”.
The publication had alleged that senator Nwoko failed to support the delegates who travelled to Enugu for the constitutional event.
Reacting, the senator said the Anioma State movement was not his private agenda but a collective mission for equity and identity.
“It has become painfully predictable that this platform, under the editorial misadventure of its publisher, would again descend into the familiar gutter of sensationalism and manufactured falsehood,” the statement read.
“The headline about senator Ned Nwoko and Anioma is just another tired attempt by a man who has made it his full-time hustle to blackmail those he cannot understand or control.”
senator Nwoko explained that all delegates who indicated interest in attending the hearing were fully supported with logistics, transport, feeding, and hotel accommodation.
“There was never any agreement or discussion about monetary compensation for attendance,” he said.
“No one was doing senator Ned Nwoko a personal favour. They were speaking up for themselves, their children, their identity, and their future.”
He stated that his stance on Anioma State is driven by values, not political inducements or rewards.
“senator Ned Nwoko does not and will not bribe people to support justice. He does not pay people to believe in their own self-determination,” he declared.
He lashed out at the publisher of the report, describing him as “a failed discredited activist, and career blackmailer” known for “doctored narratives and desperate clickbait headlines”.
He restated his commitment to the Anioma cause and promised to keep fighting for justice through the legislature.