By Chimezie Godfrey
The All Progressive Congress, APC, has revealed that its Presidential Candidate for the 2023 General Election, Senator Bola Tinubu would not attend the Arise News Presidential Town-hall Meeting.
The party’s decision was made known in a statement signed by the Director, Media & Publicity, APC Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga made available to the press on Saturday in Abuja.
According to Onanuga, the Campaign Council expressed surprise that the TV station listed their 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.
He said,”Our attention has been drawn to an advertisement by Arise News in connection with a Town Hall meeting scheduled for 4 December.
“We are 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.
“As we said in an earlier statement, 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.”
Onanuga stressed that 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”.
He added,”Till 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 25 February 2023.
“We therefore urge Arise News to stop using our candidate’s name or portrait in its advertisement, forthwith.”
