Update! Gov Wike says "My voice was manipulated in the leaked audio recording"

The Rivers State government has denied an audio recording released by Sahara Reporters alleged to be that of Governor Nyesom Wike, calling it a technological contraption.

Many have listened to the audio recording, and a voice purportedly of Governor Wike is heard in a telephone conversation arranging payment to some persons who are supposedly officials of INEC in exchange for their help in rigging the recently concluded legislative elections in the state.

There were also clear threats that they won't leave Rivers State alive if they fail.

But a statement by the Commissioner of Information, Austin Tam-George, the government said that the Governor had no contact with any INEC official.

The statement reads: “We categorically deny these latest allegations as a sick fabrication, an outright lie. Governor Wike never made any contact with INEC officials, in person or by telephone.

“Sahara Reportersis the online propaganda bullhorn of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Their publications are typically false, and the writers are professional hawkers of fiction.

“No one would have thought that the APC and its cowardly media allies would resort to an audio impersonation of Governor Nyesom Wike, using a voice changer technology. The voice changer technology is often used by teenagers mainly in South Korea and Japan to launch innocent technological pranks at each other, mainly for laughs.

“The use of such a technology to blackmail a governor is a new criminal low for the APC, a party already widely discredited for its addiction to falsehood. The APC and Sahara Reporters are inmates in the prison of their own lies. We reject the latest blackmail by the APC.”