Arise TV can’t railroad Tinubu into its agenda, says APC PCC

The Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) l of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has accused Arise News of trying to railroad its candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu by scheduling him for a presidential townhall meeting without consulting him.

The APC PCC in a statement by its Director of Media and Publicity, Bayo Onanuga said the campaign council was surprised to see Tinubu’s name on Arise News’ advertisement for the townhall meeting.

According to Onanuga, the move was professionally wrong and reckless.

“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,” the statement read.

He also added that as the PCC has said in an earlier statement, it would not attend a townhall meeting or debate by a TV station and then fail to honour another, saying that the party’s candidate has been using other means to communicate with the electorate across the country.

“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,” he added.