A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and
former Senator, Ayo Arise has dismissed the publication by a certain online
platform suggesting that he was privy to the manifestos of the party’s
presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Arise, in a release made available to journalists, said the
faceless online report also quoted him as advising Tinubu to abandon President
Muhammadu Buhari’s policies if he is desirous of winning the 2023 presidential
poll.
Entitled “Re: The First Thing I Saw on Tinubu’s Presidential
Manifestos – Senator Ayo Arise”, the APC chieftain described the report as the
figment of the imagination of the writer as he never met or granted an
interview with the said online platform.
”My attention has been drawn to a reckless report credited
to me by one innocuous online platform where I purportedly claimed to have seen
the manifestos of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential candidate,
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT).
“The faceless reporter also went further to insinuate that I
claimed to be very close to Tinubu and that I advised him (Tinubu) to distance
himself from the policies of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration if he
is desirous of winning the 2023 election.These are deliberate falsehood!” the
statement reads in part.
For the avoidance of doubt, Arise clarified that he granted
interviews recently to a few newspapers, and “my views on the various issues
raised were clearly captured by the various media houses under various
sensational captions.”
“The genuine newspapers largely reported the interview
factually regardless of their captions.
”I am happy that none of the conventional media published
the lies reported by the online media. Members of the public are therefore
advised to disregard the online publication in its entirety as it did not
emanate from me and hence cannot be taken as my opinions on the alleged issues
raised.
“And, whoever quoted me as saying that I am very close to
Tinubu does not know me in the first place. If I were even close to Tinubu,
which I am not, I am decent enough not to advertise such or boast of such under
any circumstances. I was not even in Tinubu’s camp at the last APC Presidential
primaries. Nevertheless, it is still part of my responsibility to society to
comment on challenges facing our polity from time to time.
“One of the issues I dwelled upon was the same faith
controversy where I said that people needed to be educated about the
circumstances that threw up the challenge.
“Another issue which I spoke extensively about was whether
continuity would be the campaign mantra of the APC flagbearer. And my
submissions were unambiguous. I opined that Tinubu would adopt the good
policies of the current administration and also see how he could improve on
where the government is facing some challenges, particularly in the area of
security.
“I argued that Tinubu would not be aspiring to be president
basically to adopt all the policies of his predecessor but to bring in some
fresh ideas.
“To show that the reporter is lacking in requisite knowledge
about politics and Journalism. It is common knowledge that a candidate can only
prosecute his or her campaign based on his input, in line with his party’s
manifestos. As of the time of the malicious publication, no such candidate’s
manifesto’ existed.”
Arise also relived his comment on Buhari’s policy: ”Well, on
Buhari’s legacies, I read a few things that Tinubu said he would do and the
first one, in terms of tackling insecurity, is the fact that he would
automatically start the process of having state police. I don’t think that if
he says that he will continue with the legacies of President Buhari, he would
just become President and start rubber-stamping everything that Buhari did.
”In terms of policies of this administration, you would
notice that a few things focus on social benefits of the people to ease the
burden of the downtrodden, now the implementation might be another question.
Have those policies achieved what they were set out to achieve? To be sure, let
me make it very clear, I do a few things for the government. I think our civil
service needs a complete overhaul. We are the ones responsible for the ailments
of the country. Even though a leader can come in and begin to change things,
the rot is so deep that when you even try, it becomes a problem and when Buhari
started fighting corruption, we started hearing the slogan “corruption is
fighting back”.
He, therefore said that ”all that was reported by the
faceless online news were outright lies, deliberately concocted to misrepresent
me and probably put me against some political interests. It is indeed the
figment of the imagination of the writer.”
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