Again, Tinubu Shuns Arise News Presidential Town Hall Event

Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has again said that he won’t attend the Arise News Presidential Town Hall Series 3 slated for Sunday, December 4, 2022.

Tinubu had shunned the first series of the event weeks ago, citing other pressing commitments at the time.

The forthcoming event will discuss ‘Education, Healthcare, Poverty and Human Capital’ with four frontline presidential candidates including Atiku Abubakar (PDP), Peter Obi (LP), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso (NNPP), and Tinubu (APC) expected to feature in Series III.

In a statement by the director, Media & Publicity, APC presidential campaign council, Bayo Onanuga, on Friday night, Tinubu faulted an advertisement bearing his photo by Arise News in respect of the third presidential town hall meeting in the series without contacting him.

Describing the invite as professionally wrong and reckless, Tinubu said he was neither consulted nor his consent obtained for the advertisement announcing the town hall meeting.

He warned Arise News to stop using his name or portrait in the advertisement for the presidential town hall series.

Onanuga stated: “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.

“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.

“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.”