JONATHAN DENIES HEAVY DRINKING ON BIRTHDAY

President Goodluck Jonathan has described as fiction the story that he fell ill in London after a “heavy birthday party thrown to celebrate his 56th birthday” at the Intercontinental Hotel.The President’s special adviser on media, Dr. Reuben Abati, in a press statement today, expressed regrets that despite the open admittance of the president’s ill health in London, some online organs went ahead to make what he called ” scurrilous distortions of the facts of the President’s indisposition”.“The truth”, said Abati, ” is that President Jonathan observed his 56th birthday anniversary quietly. For part of the day, he was airborne, in transit between Abuja and London. On arrival in London, he spent the rest of the day in the privacy of his hotel room. It has never been his custom to celebrate birthday anniversaries and no exception was made this year. No birthday party was therefore held for the President in London”.The statement accused Sahara Reporters and “some other reckless, lawless, impudent and unpatriotic internet-based media of cooking up the ” entirely fictional, malicious, hate-driven and scurrilous distortion of the facts of the President’s indisposition.The statement does not rule out legal action against the peddlers of the false report.