The Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDGs (OSSAP-SDGs) has used a fake identity to publish a rebuttal to FIJ’s investigation exposing the award of a N147.1 million construction contract to a restaurant.

On Thursday morning, TheNewsNow, an online newspaper based in Lagos, published a rejoinder titled ‘REJOINDER TO SPECIAL REPORT: 2 Weeks Before End of Buhari’s Tenure, Special Assistant Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire Paid a Restaurant N147.1m to Build Classrooms in Lagos. A Lot Was Amiss’ and attributed it to Desmond Utomwen, the media assistant to Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, OSSAP-SDGs.

It came two days after FIJ exposed how the SSAP-SDGs’ office awarded a contract to Enseno Global Ventures Ltd., a company that operates as a restaurant.

In the rejoinder, the OSSAP-SDGs seemingly refuted the claims and alleged that FIJ misrepresented the facts.

READ MORE: SPECIAL REPORT: 2 Weeks Before End of Buhari’s Tenure, Special Assistant Adejoke Adefulire Paid a Restaurant N147.1m to Build Classrooms in Lagos. A Lot Was Amiss

At the end of the rejoinder was Utomwen’s name and what was supposed to be his phone number.

FIJ called the attached phone number and found that it did not belong to him. Utomwen had used this number in the past and handed it down to a relative.

This relative provided us with his current phone number. FIJ called on Thursday afternoon, and Utomwen told us he was not aware of the rejoinder.

“I don’t know who sent that out,” Utomwen told FIJ. “I wouldn’t know who sent that out.”

Utomwen asked that we send the link to the publication to him. We did, but as of press time, he was yet to make further comments.

FIJ called all three phone numbers listed on TheNewsNow website to ascertain where they got the rejoinder from, but while one of the responders claimed the phone number was a wrong one, the other two phone numbers did not respond.