The Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu Presidential Campaign Organisation, on Friday in Abuja, appealed to the media to avoid over-sensationalising issues of facts.
Mr Bayo Onanuga, Director, Media and Communications, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu Presidential Campaign Organisation, made the appeal in a statement.
He also appealed to the media to play its constitutional role of informing the electorate to make informed choices at the forthcoming APC presidential primaries.
Onanuga, in the statement, was reacting to media interpretation to comments made by Sen. Bola Tinubu, a frontline All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential aspirant, in Abeokuta, Ogun.
“The attention of the campaign organisation has been drawn to the erroneous, misleading and mischievous interpretation of Tinubu’s address in Abeokuta, Ogun State, on Thursday.
“It is on record that the leading presidential aspirant addressed the party’s national delegates in Ogun, with Gov. Dapo Abiodun in attendance, in his effort to convince the party’s delegates to vote for him at the primaries.
“He went down memory lane to provide specific instances when he brought his political clout and strategic skills to assist individuals, groups and tendencies in the party to gain political power,” Onanuga said.
He added that these factual references are already in the public realm and had been reported and analysed in the media in the last eight years.
He stressed that they were therefore matters of public knowledge.
“While we recognise that recent unexpected interventions in the time table and the heat generated by the proximity of the event might have led to some anxiety.
“This campaign organisation believes that the main thrust of Asiwaju’s presentation, was that his huge contributions to the formation and electoral success of the APC should count in his favour,” Onanuga said.
This, he said, was because Tinubu is a true party man who desired to be the party’s candidate in the coming 2023 presidential election.
He added that there was also no doubt that the fresh conditions proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari for the consideration of the party’s presidential candidate made it necessary for Tinubu to labour to convince the delegates that he fits the bill.
He said the campaign organisation was therefore surprised at the way the opposition and Tinubu’s traducers turned his statement to give a different interpretation.
“At no time did Tinubu play any ethnic card or denigrate any ethnic group, that is surely out of his character, as David Babachir Lawal, attested in his viral whatsApp statement.
“Tinubu’s speech in Abeokuta did not demonstrate any disrespect to President Buhari, for whom he has a very high regard, and whose re-election campaign he chaired in 2019.
“Since the video of the speech he delivered in Yoruba hit the social media, varied interpretations have been given to the speech, which in the main, was about Gov. Abiodun.
“Who in the true tradition of Yoruba culture bowed to his leader after Tinubu’s short speech,” the campaign Director said.
Onanuga added that the Tinubu campaign organisation was, however, not surprised why the opposition in the APC had decided to turn and twist the statement.
He stressed that the former two-term Lagos governor, a great party man, remains the man to beat at the party’s convention on June 6.
“We are least surprised that he is the target of well-calculated and most unkind virulent attacks.
“The campaign organisation hereby appeals to the media to avoid over-sensationalising issues of facts,” he stressed.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the 13 aspirants cleared by the Chief John Odigie-Oyegun-led APC Presidential Screening Committee will contest the party’s 2023 presidential ticket at its presidential primary.
The party’s presidential primary had been slated for June 6 to 8 at the Abuja Eagle Square.