Jonathan lied! So-called U.S. envoy, a media contractor, says APC

All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Organisation (APCPCO) has accused President Goodluck Jonathan of hiring a media consultant masquerading as former United States (U.S.) Ambassador, Richard Grenell, to launch attack on the APC presidential candidate, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, in the build-up to Saturday’s election.
APCPCO spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu, described the page one advertisement in some newspapers signed by the so-called former Ambassador as a fraud and “the handiwork of a failed president and his ruinous party to tarnish the hard-won credibility and integrity of Buhari.”
Shehu’s position was a reaction to an article published in Washington Post and sponsored by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as a front-page advertorial in some Nigerian newspapers, which implied that Buhari is an Islamic fundamentalist and will be defeated on Saturday.
Shehu said in the advert, the PDP described Grenell as a former U.S. ambassador, whereas he was actually a media aide to former U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations (U.N.).
To him, the advertisement is provocative because Grenell was never a U.S. envoy but a spokesperson to former U.S. ambassadors to the UN, “who is now a media consultant to Jonathan”.
“For the avoidance of doubt, Richard Grenell is not a U.S. ex-envoy but a former spokesperson for four past U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations. According to his bio, in 2009, Richard Grenell launched Capitol Media Partners, an international strategic media and public affairs consultancy. His agency provides strategic counsel for companies and individuals (like Jonathan and the PDP) facing critical media and public policy challenges.
“Mr Grenell’s firm ‘Capitol Media Partners’ was recruited by the Presidency and the PDP to say those unfortunate statements about General Buhari. Mr Grenell made those statements not as an envoy or diplomat but as a media contractor for the Presidency and the PDP. You may confirm the authenticity of Mr Grenell from his firm’s websitehttp://capitolmediapartners.com/.”
The APC campaign office said “the latest lie by this government and the ruling PDP underscores the new low to which Nigeria’s foreign policy drift has sunk under the Jonathan government, which hires all manners of local and global quacks, to manage their tattered image marked by cluelessness, incompetence, squander-mania, meteoric corruption and dearth of developmental ideas”.