The Presidential Campaign Council of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has announced that its flag bearer, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will not honour the third edition of the presidential town hall meeting being hosted by Arise Television.
This was confirmed in a statement issued by Bayo Onanuga, Director, Media & Publicity, APC Presidential Campaign Council which was made available to Africa Today News, New York.
The announcement is coming on the heels of the recent withdrawal by the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate and his running mate, Atiku Abubakar and Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, from a similar town hall meeting, “The Candidate” hosted by Original Daria Media concept, Nigerian Television Authority and MacArthur Foundation.
Recall that the Presidential town hall meeting series organised by Arise TV is slated for 4 December 2022.
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While expressing surprise at the inclusion of Tinubu in its advertisement, Onanuga alleged in his statement that there was no prior consultation with him and his aides nor consent obtained from the candidate.
Part of the statement read: ‘Our attention has been drawn to an advertisement by Arise News in connection with a Town Hall meeting scheduled for 4 December.
‘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.’
Also, Tinubu has said that it would be a disgrace for him to mention the name of his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi.
Tinubu made this known while speaking at a rally in Gbaramatu, Delta state on Friday.
According to the former Lagos governor, the ‘wrong statistics’ often dished out by Obi is not what Nigeria currently needs.
Tinubu went on to describe himself as one of ‘a few’ presidential candidates still in the race.