This was stated by Bayo Onanuga, the APC Director, Media and Publicity on Friday in a statement made available to SaharaReporters.
The ruling All Progressive Candidate (APC) has said that its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, and his running mate, Kashim Shettima, would not attend the Arise News Presidential Town Hall Meeting.
This was stated by Bayo Onanuga, the APC Director, Media and Publicity on Friday in a statement made available to SaharaReporters.
Onanuga said Arise TV could not see secure Tinubu's consent before selecting him as one of the participants of the meeting.
The statement reads: "Our attention has been drawn to an advertisement by Arise News in connection with a Town Hall meeting scheduled for 4 December.
"We are surprised that the TV station listed our candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as a participant, when there was no prior consultation with him and his aides and no consent of the candidate obtained for the advertisement.
"We deem this as professionally wrong and reckless. No media organisation should arrogate to itself the right to railroad any candidate to fit into its own agenda.
"As we said in an earlier statement, the busy and hectic campaign schedules of Asiwaju Tinubu will not permit him to honour all invitations from different radio and TV stations for debate and or Town Hall meetings; hence, our decision for him not to start with one media organisation and later ignore the others.
"In the absence of a unified and mutually acceptable platform for all parties and all candidates, our candidate has been speaking directly to Nigerians, since President Muhammadu Buhari launched Tinubu’s Action Plan for a Better Nigeria.
"Till date, over seven town hall meetings, with strategic sectors, have been held across the geopolitical zones, where the candidate and his running mate have spoken about their programmes.”
"These direct engagements will continue before the election on 25 February, 2023.
"We; therefore, urge Arise News to stop using our candidate’s name or portrait in its advertisement, forthwith," the statement added.