By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Director of Media and Publicity of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Mr Bayo Onanuga, has denied reports that the president-elect, Mr Bola Tinubu, has held a clandestine meeting with the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Mr Olukayode Ariwoola, in London, the United Kingdom.
Mr Tinubu travelled out of the country on Tuesday night to have a rest in Paris after the 2023 presidential election and would be expected in London before jetting to Saudi Arabia for the lesser Hajj, according to a statement issued by his office on Wednesday to counter a report that he left Nigeria for medical attention in Europe.
In a report on Thursday, it was alleged that Mr Ariwoola disguised himself in a wheelchair to have a meeting with the president-elect, whose legitimacy is being challenged by his major opponents in the exercise, which was held on February 25.
But Mr Onanuga said both men never met as claimed, noting that his boss was yet to leave France for the UK, describing the report as “grossly fake, misleading and malicious.”
“The story was a pure concoction from the hallucinating minds of hatchet men bent on creating doubts and public distrust about the legitimacy of our recent election, which was won by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” he added.
“We refute emphatically that there has been no clandestine meeting between the President-elect and the respected Chief Justice of our country anywhere. It’s pure fabricated news, groundless in fact and authenticity.
“To show that the story was a mere salacious fiction, meant to draw traffic to the discredited purveyor, it claimed the Chief Justice left Nigeria for London on 11 March, on a wheelchair to board a plane.
“The President-elect left Nigeria on 21 March, 10 clear days thereafter. What kind of appointment or secret meeting will the two men have arranged in London, with such a wide disparate arrival date, except in the imagination of the false news merchants?
“We can confirm that the President-elect, who left Nigeria Tuesday, has not been in London. He is right now in France to have a deserved rest after a hectic campaign that began in January 2022.
“He will go to London thereafter before proceeding to Mecca for the lesser Hajj.
“As we move towards inauguration on 29 May 2023, Nigerians should expect more false and salacious news from a section of the Nigerian media on the payroll of the opposition.
“We urge the media once again to cross-check their information from the President-elect media office before rushing to press,” the statement said.
Adedapo Adesanya