March 24, (THEWILL) – The Presidential Campaign Council of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC-PCC) has denied media reports of a secret meeting between the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Olukayode Ariwoola.
Media reports (not THEWILL), had on Thursday, alleged that Justice 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 February 25 presidential election.
But, a statement issued on Thursday night, by Bayo Onanuga, Director of Media and Publicity of the APC-PCC, dismissed the report as fake and 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”.
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.”
“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,” he said.
Onanuga maintained that the President-elect, who left Nigeria on Tuesday, has not been in London, saying he was still in France to have a deserved rest after a hectic campaign that began in January 2022.
He added that Tinubu would go to London thereafter before proceeding to Mecca for the lesser Hajj.
The statement read in part: “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 so wide disparate arrival dates, except in the imagination of the false news merchants?
“We can confirm that the President-elect, who left Nigeria on 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.”
