NATION

Tinubu’s campaign team demands apology from ThisDay over fake news

The All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council (APC PCC) has demanded an apology from ThisDay Newspaper and its publisher, Nduka Obaigbena over a report it described as fake news.

Signed by Bayo Onanuga, its director of media for the campaign, the APC PCC accused ThisDay newspaper of carrying a “campaign of calumny against our presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu,, with a fake report about the death of a respected medical doctor, Kolapo Akande, who was the husband of Lola Akande, a commissioner in Lagos.”

The PCC adds that the “report denigrated Kolapo Akande and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, accusing the duo of being involved in drug trade.

“Not caring a hoot about the need to respect the dead, the paper painted Akande as a drug lord, who had ā€˜lived under the radarā€™ and had stayed aloof from people.

“Unknown to ThisDay, their imagined ā€˜hibernatingā€™ Kolapo was an Accord Party candidate for the House of Representatives some years back.”

Accusing the newspaper of pursuing “its jaundiced, cash and carry journalism, it gleefully reported that Kolapo Akande was the same Mueez Akande mentioned in the shuttered 30 year-old drug investigation against our candidate in the U.S.

“But it was all false. ThisDay wrote a mere fiction and had relied on a false tweet by one David Hundeyin, a hatchet writer and so-called investigative journalist, who has identified himself as a Peter Obi supporter,” the campaign said.

It adds, “Any reasonable publishing house ought to be wary about any information coming from such a biased person. But not ThisDay. Anything that portrays Tinubu in a very bad light is fair game, as such a report will justify the tons of Naira that accompanies it.

“We have waited for the past 48 hours, hoping the paper will show some remorse and apologise to the Akandes and Asiwaju Tinubu over the malicious report. We are surprised it has not taken such a dignified step.

“We now formally demand a full apology from the paper and its publisher, Prince Nduka Obaigbena, for the utterly unprofessional report.

“We hope henceforth the paper will seek to be driven by the ethical ideals of journalism and not other material considerations. In view of the established evidence of violation of the core ethics of journalism, we demand that the Nigeria Press Council take appropriate disciplinary action against Thisday to save journalism at this sensitive period from the merchants of falsehood and abusers of the public trust that the press embodies.

“We call on the Independent National Electoral Commission to invoke the relevant sections of the Electoral Act 2022 to sue Thisday and any other medium that commits flagrant violation of editorial rules to the courts,” Onanuga stated.

 

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