Anambra State Governor, Chief Willie Obiano, has described as “totally untrue, false and offensive” the claim that he travelled with 179 people to mark his daughter’s graduation in the United States.

In a statement yesterday by his Senior Special Assistant on Media, James Eze , the governor described the claim as “the worst lie ever told by a disappointingly unintelligent opposition and its propaganda machinery.”

The statement read in part: “After watching with horror, as what began like a cheap, despicable gossip on the social media slowly began to assume all the qualities of a serious propaganda, with some poorly informed politicians latching onto it to burnish their faded glory, we consider it necessary at this point to put a disclaimer on the story suggesting that the governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano had travelled to the U.S. with 179 people to be with his daughter on her graduation day.
“This story is the worst lie ever told by a disappointingly unintelligent opposition and its propaganda machinery.

The truth however is that the governor travelled to his daughter’s graduation alone. Anyone seen around him in the US travelled on their own.

“It is totally incredulous to suggest that Governor Obiano, who in all his three years in office has never travelled overseas with any of his closest aides, would suddenly open the floodgates and travel with 179 people to a mere graduation in the U.S. It is even more ridiculous to believe that any governor of Anambra State (not a banana republic, mark you) would conceive of such an idea in the 21st Century.”
It added: “We challenge anyone who has a contrary evidence to produce it. Nevertheless, it would help to recall that since he assumed office, Governor Willie Obiano has chalked up an impressive record in integrity and transparency.

Under his watch, Anambra State was rated the Most Transparent government in Nigeria in 2015 by the Federation Accounts Sub-Committee on International Public Sector Accounting System (IPSAS).

Obiano is also a winner of the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Award from the Ethics and Corporate Compliance Institute of Nigeria in 2015.

He also won the Zik Prize for Good Governance in 2015. All these endorsements mean a lot to him.

“Governor Obiano is fully aware of the weight of the responsibility placed on him by Ndi Anambra and the enormous expectations of the institutions that have decorated him with honour in the past three years.”