The Port Harcourt Telegraph has acknowledged that it has made an error in its reporting of a police story involving the arrest of a council Chairman.
The newspaper had in a report published online reported that the Chairman of Khana Local Government Council, Barrister Lahteh Loolo was arrested and detained.
“We have found that our Correspondent who anchored the story alluded mistakenly to the Khana Local Government Chairman instead of Gokana even after the Publisher of the Port Harcourt Telegraph confirmed the arrest with the police.
Said the Telegraph in a statement, “We regret that we have made an error in a story published on our online platform which revealed the arrest of a Local Government Council lChairman.
“That report erroneously said that the Chairman of Khana Local Government Council, Barrister Lahteh Loolo has been arrested and detained by the police.
“We have discovered that instead of accurately stating that the Chairman of Gokana Local Government Council, Paul Kobani was actually the one arrested, we mistakenly reported that his counterpart in Khana was taken into police custody for questioning.
“Although the facts and circumstances of the story were correct, we wrongly mixed up Khana and Gokana and painfully caused a lot of embarrassment to Barrister Lahteh Loolo whose name appeared in the report.
“We profusely apologise to Barrister Loolo for the said error and restate that the facts before us show that the Chairman of Gokana Local Government, Paul Kobani was indeed the one arrested.
“Honestly, we are pained by this mix up. We accordingly regret the extent of damage that this unfortunate incident could have caused the reputation of the Council Chairman.
“While we are embarrassed by the error which has hurt our integrity as purveyors of credible news and information within and outside the Niger Delta region, we state for the avoidance of doubt that the one who is being quizzed by the police at this time is the Chairman of the Gokana Local Government Council, Paul Kobani.
“We are equally aware that the police which confirmed the arrest of the Gokana Chairman would have been in shock when the headline “Khana LG Chairman under arrest” appeared. We equally apologise to the Police for the error. We state categorically that it was not our intention, for any reason, to spin the information received in good faith from the police out of context.”