By Bukola Olasanmi
The Chairman/Editor-in-Chief of THISDAY/ARISE NEWS Media Group, Nduka Obaigbena (CON), has reacted to the various allegations levelled against him by the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council’s (PCC) Director of Media and Publicity, Mr. Bayo Onanuga and its Director, Strategic Communication, Mr. Dele Alake.
Obaigbena also challenged them to present their candidate, Bola Tinubu, for debates and town hall meetings in order for the electorate to interrogate his proposed policies and programmes and make informed choices on who should lead them in the 2023 election.
Obaigbena, in a four-page rebuttal to an article by Onanuga and Alake, which was in response to an earlier statement by the THISDAY/ARISE News Board of Editors, titled: “Tinubu and THISDAY/ARISE Media Group and the Attack on Free Speech,” stressed that journalists were not the opponents of the APC presidential candidate in the forthcoming election.
The statement titled: “Lies Have Short Legs, They Do Not Run Far – The Fake News from Bayo Onanuga and Dele Alake,” and categorised into four parts, was signed by Obaigbena’s Chief of Staff, Fawuziya Mohammed.
Obaigbena said though many APC-PCC members, had personally called to dissociate themselves from the resort to blackmail, personal attacks and bullying by Alake and Onanuga, the statement noted that, “everyday the media calls on public officials and those who seek public office to account,” establishing that there was nothing personal with the APC candidate.
Obaigbena pointed out that when the late Abiola was the standard bearer of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) for the 1993 presidential election, he was a senatorial candidate on the platform of the National Republication Convention (NRC).
He said Abiola then supported SDP’s candidate, the late Chris Okolie, leading to a strain in their relationship.
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Obaigbena further noted that he was also Special Adviser to the NRC National Chairman, Tom Ikimi in 1991, and later Hameed Kusamotu.
“Before and after the annulment of the 1993 presidential election, Abiola and Obaigbena were friends and remained friends till the end. Abiola was broad-minded enough to understand that Obaigbena, like his other friends in NRC, were competitors for power. But that competition ended when Abacha took power and all true democrats moved against military rule.
“Indeed, Abiola’s last public appearance was an Obaigbena event at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) on June 8, 1994, where he took the Abacha government to the cleaners while demanding his mandate. After his speech against the Abacha junta, he went underground only to reappear in Epetedo, Lagos Island, on June 12, 1994 to declare himself president.
“The rest, as they say, is history. Some weeks before the Epetedo Declaration on May 9, 1994, Abiola and Obaigbena had met on a South African flight from London to Johannesburg for Nelson Mandela’s presidential inauguration. Obaigbena sat on one side of an aisle seat, while Abiola sat on the other side of that aisle seat with his wife Kudirat taking the window seat next to him.
“Abiola reminded Obaigbena that he had driven all the way from Ilorin to Lagos City Hall to attend his wedding in 1987. I then invited him to my event of June 8, 1994. As we arrived Johannesburg International Airport as guests of the Mandelas, Obaigbena was witness to his claim of being the elected Nigerian President and his delegation was driven off in official motorcade while Obaigbena made his way to the Carlton Hotel, downtown Johannesburg (the same hotel most invited guests lodged), and later bussed to Union Building in Pretoria, venue of the inauguration, where he ran into Dele Olojede who was covering the event for a New York newspaper,” he explained.