Tony Rapu: Confirm story before publishing, AY tells journalists

Popular comedian, Ayo Makun, on Wednesday charged Nigerian journalists to verify their stories before publishing.

The man popularly known as AY made the statement in an Instagram post in reaction to media reports that a woman defrauded Pastor Tony Rapu of House of Freedom church.

Multiple news outlets had on Tuesday reported that the Economic and Crimes Commission (EFCC) arraigned one Olawunmi Dilureni before Justice S.O. Solebo of the Lagos State High Court, Ikeja on an eight-count charge of conspiracy, obtaining money by false pretence and stealing to the tune of N23,320,000.

The defendant and others allegedly conspired to defraud Anthony Rapu, Nellie St. Matthew-Daniel and Eyitope St. Matthew-Daniel of the money.

Some news platforms (not Qed.ng) took the Anthony Rapu in the case for Pastor Tony Rapu.

Reacting, AY wrote: “Earlier today, the News Agency of Nigeria purportedly published a story about a woman who allegedly defrauded a man named Tony Rapu and others for a large sum of money in a diesel supply deal.

“What did the ‘journalists’ who wrote this story do? They jumped on the name ‘Tony Rapu’, assumed it was Pastor Tony Rapu, Senior Pastor of This Present House / House of Freedom and published the story using his picture and details of his organization. This is wrong!”

*Journalists need to confirm their stories before rushing off to print*! Earlier today, the News Agency of Nigeria purportedly published a story about a woman who allegedly defrauded a man named Tony Rapu and others for a large sum of money in a diesel supply deal. What did the ‘journalists’ who wrote this story do? They jumped on the name ‘Tony Rapu’, assumed it was Pastor Tony Rapu, Senior Pastor of This Present House / House of Freedom and published the story using his picture and details of his organization. This is wrong! Sadly, this story has been picked up and published verbatim by several other news outlets including The Nation and The Nigerian Tribune. If any of these ‘journalists’ had bothered to check their facts instead of being concerned with headlines, they would have known that the alleged story has nothing to do with Pastor Tony Rapu! When will our journalists be more concerned about integrity and less about sensationalism? Pastor Rapu has every right to sue these so-called news agencies for defamation. Maybe this is the only way they will learn the errors of their ways.

A post shared by Ayo Makun (@aycomedian) on Mar 7, 2018 at 1:49am PST

The 30 Days in Atlanta producer went on to suggest that the media organisations be sued for defamation.

While AY took it upon himself to lecture journalists on how to do their work, Pastor Rapu had not responded to the story publicly as at the time of filing this report.