The presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has denied multiple media reports alleging that he at a point demanded ₦50 billion monthly from the former Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode during his administration.
Africa Daily News, New York recalls that Ambode who became governor of the State in 2015, ended up spending only four years in office as his attempt to secure a second tenure failed after he lost the APC primary election in 2018 following reported disagreements with the party leaders in the state.
Also, a report recently emerged online alleging that part of his inability to secure the APC governorship ticket in 2018 was his refusal to remit the said amount to Asiwaju.
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Debunking the report on Tuesday, a statement by the Director, Media, and Communications for Tinubu Campaign Organisation (TCO), Bayo Onanuga said Tinubu could not have made such a demand.
‘The spuriousness of the statement is in the evidence that Lagos did not begin to clock N50 billion revenue until after Ambode left office.
‘Tinubu could not have demanded a billion monthly payment from Ambode when the state government didn’t make such in a month throughout the tenure of Ambode’, the statement added.
The statement further alledged that the site where some of the fake news emanated from has been identified as World of News with URL as world news.
According to Onanuga, ‘A content analysis of the site clearly showed that it is a Biafra news platform’.
In his response, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Obi, who aligned with the position of his APC counterpart that campaigns for the coming 2023 general election should be issue-based rather than trying to run down opponents, however, took exception to Tinubu’s claim that his supporters were members of Biafra.
Speaking through his media adviser, Valentine Obienyem, Obi stated that Tinubu’s advice ‘exactly mirrored what Obi had propagated over the years’.
He stated that if Tinubu’s supporters were mindful of their principal’s advice, “some articles published in some newspapers against Obi would not have been published, including those with offensive titles”.
On the alleged fake letter from the president of Ghana and the alleged request of N50billion monthly payment, Obi said while he was not bothered about their authenticity, it was wickedness to link them to his supporters, insisting that any publication from his group was always properly signed and the place it was coming from very clearly spelt out.
