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The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged that the foreign trip embarked on by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, was a ploy to dodge the Arise Television presidential debate.
This comes as Tinubu jetted out of the country for the United Kingdom on Saturday, December 3, 2022, where he's billed for an engagement at the Chatham House in London on Monday to speak on security, economy, and foreign policy.
The development comes barely a day before the presidential town hall meeting organised by Arise TV in partnership with Centre for Development and Democracy (CDD) to engage candidates from the four major political parties in the country.
The Director of Media and Publicity, APC Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, said in a statement titled, ‘Tinubu Won’t Succumb to Arise News’ Blackmail,’ that he found it ‘shocking and downright anomalous’ that Arise TV continues to broadcast the participation of Tinubu in its town hall meeting despite an earlier statement that he would not be available for the engagement.
PDP accuses Tinubu of dodging: Reacting to the development, the Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organisation insisted that the trip abroad was perfectly timed for Tinubu to avoid the Arise TV debate.
This was contained in a statement by the organisation's spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan.
The statement partly read: “It is clear that the foreign trip embarked on by Asiwaju Tinubu was a deliberate plot to dodge the Arise TV debate scheduled to hold on Sunday (today) following the fear that Nigerians will take him to task on the FCT relocation plot, alleged criminal indictments, perjury, forgery and inconsistencies in age, name, ancestry and education qualification.
“Moreover, the handlers of the APC presidential candidate are not comfortable to put him before the cameras because of his constant embarrassing gaffes that question his fitness for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”