The Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has rebuked the camps of his counterparts from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi for finding faults with his absence at the Arise TV town hall meeting in Abuja.
This was disclosed in a statement by his Director of Media and Publicity, Bayo Onanuga
Tinubu said Atiku’s camp cannot force him to appear or send representatives to National debates.
Recall that it was reported that a spokesman of the Atiku/Okowa presidential campaign team said Tinubu was afraid of being exposed; hence his refusal to attend national debates.
However, the APC presidential candidate said he would not be “railroaded” into appearing for media debates.
The statement in part read; “We read with amusement the ridiculous position of Atiku/Okowa Campaign Council and that of Labour Party/Peter Obi on the absence of our presidential candidate, Asíwájú Bola Ahmed Tinubu, from the poorly organized Town Hall debate session by Arise TV.''
“The separate press releases from these two dead-on-arrival presidential campaign offices sought to make an issue out of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s well-thought-out decision to follow his own campaign plan.''
“The more absurd of the two positions was the one canvassed by the spokesperson of Atiku/Okowa campaign. The PDP Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar didn’t also attend Arise News Town Hall Meeting.’’
“Yet his spokesman, out of joblessness and lack of productive venture attacked our candidate, perhaps in pursuit of a media mileage that their campaign badly needs to divert attention from their failing presidential bid.
“We believe that even a palace jester should have a moment of self introspection. If this had been done, the statement would have been unnecessary.
“Instead of PDP to tell Nigerians why its presidential candidate has not returned to Nigeria after their purposeless visit to United States where he and his other 15 peripatetic adults were given a cold shoulder by US senior officials, the spokesperson is busy chasing shadows.’’
“We want to state again for the attention of both PDP and LP, that Asiwaju Tinubu will not be railroaded into media appearances and debates.”