A new twist has been introduced in the controversy surrounding Wednesdays outing of Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, where he was reported to have made some scathing remarks, suggesting discontent with President Muhammadu’s government, by accusing it of trying to sabotage his presidential ambition.
It has emerged that the former Governor of Lagos and presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), did not make the comments attributed to him, according to the APC Presidential Campaign Council (APC-PCC), which is now claiming that both the images and voices of the party’s National Leader, were superimposed on his original outing.
Coming against the backdrop of another controversial claim to the effect by the party that the presence of two bullion vans spotted in the Bourdillon, Ikoyi premises of the former governor, on February 22, 2019, the eve of that year’s presidential election in which the incumbent, Muhammadu Buhari, was elected for a second tenure actually missed their way and strayed into the compound.
Ayodele Adewale, Organising Secretary of the APC, who made the claim while appearing on The Morning Show, a breakfast programme on Arise Television, had, said: Hear him: “That bullion van missed its way there, and it was not invited by Asiwaju or anybody. That comment was made jokingly. Reporters met with him, I was there, I was standing not too far and there were a lot of accusations. You know Asiwaju very well. He loves cracking jokes and crack people up most times. And he made that statement. Not that he owns it.
We’ve seen delivery vans missing road, we’ve seen high equipment vans missing road, we’ve seen heavy military equipment – there was one that missed the road into Nigeria once – in fact the Nigerian government had to seize that armoured tank and al of that. People commit a lot human error. And it was human error by the people that were coming. And I’ve told you that it a mixed identity of address.”
On the same platform, on Friday, Mariyan Baba, member, Public Affairs Directorate of the APC-PCC, said on Friday that those who were bent on playing dirty politics were at work, using their expertise in modern-day technology to manipulate Tinubu’s voice and image, urging Nigerian journalists to dig deeper into whatever information they were presented.
She said: “In Nigeria we don’t believe in clean competition unfortunately and this is the area that we need to change if we want our country to forge forward. We should give room for clean competition. You go out in the field with free, fair ground for everybody. Go and compete. You win, you win, you don’t win, you go, there’s another time coming. But we always go by creating stories.
“My face could be removed and somebody’s face could be put on my head. This is modern generation. We have all these social media, they can do a lot. Our principal, our presidential candidate, Alhaji Ahmed Bola Tinubu did not say all those words people are now claiming he did. He didn’t say it.
“And the issue of petrol scarcity, is not new, we’ve had it in the past. In fact in worse situations. Things have improved. Last year we had christmas celebration and every filling station was selling. We had fuel and moving around. There was no problem. These hitches come from time to time.”
Baba, who while responding to another allegation made against Tinubu by Hajia Naja’atu Mohammed, former Director of the APC Presidential Campaign Council PCC (APC-PCC), who said said it would be fatal to Nigeria to elect Tinubu as President, due to his current abysmally poor health condition, said the former governor was enjoying excellent health.
She said: “The condition of health of my candidate is excellent. If you watch the condition of all the presidential candidates that are vying for the same position and you compare with our condidate, where hasn’t he been in Nigeria? He hasn’t sat down for a day. He’s moving from pillar to post discussing with people, meeting people, finding out what they need and all that.”