Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has once again declared that he would not be available for the session with presidential candidates, tagged, ‘Town Hall meeting’ organised by Arise TV.
A statement signed on Friday by the Director, Media & Publicity of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, said Tinubu has no prior knowledge of the scheduled session with presidential candidates fixed for this weekend.
The Town Hall meeting, which is the third in the series, candidates are expected to discuss their plans for health, education, poverty alleviation and development of the human capital.
Expected at Sunday’s session are Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party and the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP), respectively.
Onanuga, however, maintained that the APC Presidential Campaign Council was ”surprised that the TV station listed our candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as a participant, when there was no prior consultation with him and his aides and no consent of the candidate obtained for the advertisement.
“We deem this as professionally wrong and reckless. No media organisation should arrogate to itself the right to railroad any candidate to fit into its own agenda,” he said.
Onanuga added that “the busy and hectic campaign schedules of Asiwaju Tinubu will not permit him to honour all invitations from different radio and TV stations for debate and or Town Hall meetings, hence, our decision for him not to start with one media organisation and later ignore the others.
“In the absence of a unified and mutually acceptable all parties and all candidates platform, our candidate has been speaking directly to Nigerians, since President Muhammadu Buhari launched Tinubu’s Action Plan for a Better Nigeria.
“To date, over seven town hall meetings with strategic sectors have been held across the geopolitical zones, where the candidate and his running mate have spoken about their programmes.
“These direct engagements will continue before the election on 25the February, 2023.
“We, therefore, urge Arise News to stop using our candidate’s name or portrait in its advertisement, forthwith,” the statement read.
