Obaigbena replies Onanuga, dares APC to present Tinubu for debate

The Chairman/Editor-in-Chief of THISDAY/ARISE NEWS Media Group, Prince Nduka Obaigbena (CON), has challenged the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council’s (PCC) Director of Media and Publicity, Mr. Bayo Onanuga and its Director, Strategic Communication, Mr. Dele Alake to present their candidate, Bola Tinubu, for debates and town hall meetings in order for the electorate to interrogate his proposed policies and programmes and make informed choice on who should lead them in the 2023 election.

Obaigbena, in a four-page rebuttal to an article by Onanuga and Alake, which was in response to an earlier statement by the THISDAY/ARISE News Board of Editors, titled: “Tinubu and THISDAY/ARISE Media Group and the Attack on Free Speech,” stressed that journalists were not the opponents of the APC presidential candidate in the forthcoming election.

The statement titled: “Lies Have Short Legs, They Do Not Run Far – The Fake News from Bayo Onanuga and Dele Alake,” and categorised into four parts, was signed by Obaigbena’s Chief of Staff, Fawuziya Mohammed.

While noting that although many APC-PCC members, had personally called to dissociate themselves from the resort to blackmail, personal attacks and bullying by Alake and Onanuga, the statement noted that, “everyday the media calls on public officials and those who seek public office to account,” establishing that there was nothing personal with the APC candidate.

Starting with issues around the late Chief M.K.O Abiola and the June 12 struggle, Obaigbena pointed out that, when the late Abiola was the standard bearer of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) for the 1993 presidential election, he was a senatorial candidate on the platform of the National Republication Convention (NRC).

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“Before and after the annulment of the 1993 presidential election, Abiola and Obaigbena were friends and remained friends till the end. Abiola was broad-minded enough to understand that Obaigbena, like his other friends in NRC, were competitors for power. But that competition ended, when Abacha took power and all true democrats moved against military rule.

In addition, Obaigbena stated that at ARISE News Channel and THISDAY, “We believe the narratives around Africa and Africans and the black race can only change, when we have strong global voices.

Thus, contrary to the wild claims by Alake and Onanuga, the organisation did not owe any tax authorities in South Africa, adding that it also paid all its creditors in an organised exit strategy.

Responding to the allegation about ARISE Networks Limited (ANL) UK, he said his disqualification as a Director was still a subject of litigation in the UK Court of Appeals and would not want to make further comments on the matter.

He stressed that he was not detained as he signed no bail bond, “and indeed has never been detained by the EFCC or the police in any criminal case, contrary to the fake news of Bayo Onanuga and Dele Alake.”

He, therefore, explained that the N500 million THISDAY refunded was compensation the Jonathan administration paid THISDAY for the Boko Haram bombing of the newspaper’s elegant Abuja office.

On staff salaries, he stated that the organisation has been very consistent in paying salaries regularly, as and when due every month at ARISE News Channel.

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“Those who passed through The News stable of which he was co-founder and CEO, have not forgotten how the company owed 11-month salaries between 1996 and 1997, how protesting staff were forced to forfeit 5-month salary as “contribution to the democratic struggle”, and how union leaders were sacked over the same protest.

“All we do is create value. We have had over 3,000 people in the employment of THISDAY/ARISE Media Group over the years and we are proud to have created value in human and resource capital.

“Dozens of those we have employed here have moved on to become ministers, special advisers, ambassadors, commissioners, special assistants, and publishers of print and online newspapers, including several who are Tinubu’s personal staff and executives in his companies,” he said.

To this end, he maintained that, “No misinformation, fake news of Bayo Onanuga and Dele Alake will change Obaigbena’s global trajectory. The journalists at THISDAY and ARISE News Channel are doing their duty by raising pertinent questions.

“Rather than addressing our questions, Alake and Onanuga countered with wild and misleading allegations and fake news. We did not dismiss their allegations and have addressed them frontally. We now challenge them to respond with facts to the legitimate questions of the Nigerian people through their media.

“Present your presidential candidate for Town Hall meetings, debates and interviews by the independent media that last for more than 8 minutes, and not pre-arranged Townhalls, where questions are pre-set, prearranged and rehearsed.