A chieftain of the ruling All
Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu, on Tuesday debunked reports that he
recently purchased a new airplane.
Mr. Tinubu, who ruled as Lagos
State governor between 1999 and 2007, described the report as false, stressing
that the publication was partial and unfair in the said report.
THISDAY newspaper had in its July
23 edition said that the former Lagos governor recently purchased a new
airplane.
But Mr. Tinubu, in a statement
released on Tuesday and signed by his Special Assistant, Ademola Oshodi, said
the story was false and the newspaper partisan.
“The THISDAY story of Sunday,
July 23, 2017 claiming Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has recently purchased a new
airplane is symptomatic of what happens when a publication divorces itself from
any pretence of objective and impartial reportage,” the statement said.
“This is what happens when a
newspaper becomes a mercenary tool for partisan designs. THISDAY has a partisan
axe to grind and it seeks to grind that axe against someone like Asiwaju Bola
Tinubu because that is what the paymasters of THISDAY demand of it.
“So eager to be seen as loyal to
the whims of its paymasters, THISDAY stands disloyal to the very truth it
professes to publish. Rather than practise journalism, this publication now
specialises in peddling rumour and manufacturing fake scandal. One of the
paper’s favourite excursions into fiction is to publish any and all things
false about Bola Tinubu. Why THISDAY has such animus against Tinubu only the
paper can answer. That such irrational hatred exists cannot be controverted.”
The statement also faulted the
pictures attached to the publication, saying they were doctored and not
genuine.
“Tinubu has not purchased a new
plane. He is currently using the same plane he has used for over a decade now,”
Mr. Oshodi said.
He also explained further that
the only plane the APC leader owns is the same plane that was used during the
general elections of 2011 and 2015, which aided the APC campaign efforts and
eventual victory at the polls.
Mr. Oshodi who claimed that the
report was targeted at embarrassing Mr. Tinubu, noted that if an investigation
had been carried out before the publication, the ‘fake’ report would have been
discarded.
“But these merchants of fake news
are more interested in attacking perceived enemies than in enlightening the
public as should be the call of a newspaper,” the statement said.
The statement argued that if
authors of the publication had checked the photograph they published, they
would have noticed that the pictures revealed spaces with different interiors.
“They would have easily seen that
(Mr.) Tinubu’s picture was superimposed to a space he has not been,” Mr. Oshodi
said, adding that the controversial report was “sensational, shoddy and false.”
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ReplyDeleteSo what? is he not the Jagaban? he can afford it na.
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