The award winning veteran journalist, Sam Omatseye, has slammed controversial investigative journalist, David Hundeyin, for erroneously ascribing the picture of a dog with a cardboard hanging on its neck and an inscription demeaning the person of former president Goodluck Jonathan to him.

The picture surfaced online in the build up to the 2015 general elections as a form of protest and disapproval of Jonathan’s re-election aspiration.

Hundeyin, however, was said to have mischievously dug up and referred to the picture on the social media in an attempt to get back at Omatseye for his “Obi-tuary” article written about Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate.

While featuring on TVC News Breakfast News recently, Omatseye denied being the one carrying the dog in the picture.

He stated that someone like Hundeyin is in journalism to exploit the gullibility of the masses and build a career out of mystery.

He expressed his surprise to have seen the picture instruction with a misleading caption, emphasizing with all seriousness that he was never the one.

His words: “He (David) was saying that the internet was not as vibrant as it is today, that I was able to get away with it then and I can’t get away with it now. I think that Nigerians who can look at the picture will see that it is not Sam Omatseye. It is not me. I was really incensed when I first saw it but I have forgiven him.

“But the thing is that people should realise that people like him are those that give the social media a bad name. They are those that try to exploit the gullibility of the mass of Nigerians the want to make a career out of the mystery and assassinate people who are innocent of anything. If you have a grudge against a person go with the fact not with lies.”

Talking about his wealth of experience in journalism as his profession, Omatseye explained: “I’ve been in this profession for a long time. I have won awards in Canada, UK and United States. I taught journalism and media in the university for close to 10 years. I was a technology reporter. I started tracking as a reporter the development of digital journalism and more before some of these people were born. When there was pre-digital life to digital life, I was reporting how we went from rotary phone to when we have cellphone, internet connection and all that.

“All of these that we are seeing today, I experienced them in their original form. I saw all of the forms until they became 3G from 1G. I reported it from 1G up to 3G. I reported 4G even 3G before 3G came out, 4G before 4G came out. So, we know all of these.

“When you’re doing investigative journalism, get the fact, facts are sacred, opinion is free. Some of these young people don’t understand that when you do journalism, you have to be true to the fact and you don’t exploit people all because you want to take advantage of them.”

He, however, made it known that he won’t overlook such from the controversial but budding journalist when such repeats itself, noting that he won’t hesitate to explore legal means.

“I was really angry at the beginning, I was trying to consult my lawyers but I said no, it is not an easy task to restrain a young man in his prime and as a Christian, I let it go although I won’t take it again now. Apostle Paul said in Hebrews 12: 15: “We should not allow bitterness spring up because it defiles us. Next time this kind of thing happens, they will be held to pay,” he concluded.