The PCC in the statement accused Obaigbena and the media platforms of corruption and lacking the moral rights to moderate public discourse.
Two members of the ruling All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council (APC PCC), Bayo Onanuga and Dele Alake, have fired back at the Editor-in-Chief of the Arise TV and ThisDay newspaper, Chief Nduka Obaigbena, over his response to the duo’s allegations against the media groups.
SaharaReporters reported that since Monday, the media organisations and the APC PCC have been at loggerheads after the APC PCC in a joint statement by Alake and Onanuga, who are both members of the council, verbally attacked Obaigbena over the editorial by the media organisation boards of editors.
The PCC in the statement accused Obaigbena and the media platforms of corruption and lacking the moral rights to moderate public discourse.
On Wednesday, Obaigbena through his Chief of Staff, Fauziya Mohammed, in a fresh statement captioned “Lies Have Short Legs, They Do Not Run Far: The Fake News From Bayo Onanuga and Dele Alake,” said that the APC PCC should address the questions by the organisations’ journalists rather than counter it with wild and misleading allegations and fake news.
But Onanuga and Alake in a statement signed on behalf of Media and Communication Directorates of the APC PCC fired back at Obaigbena and his media organisation, describing him as “a congenital blackmailer and hustler,” whose statement was a mere “rambling.”
Onanuga and Alake said that Obaigbena’s “largely diversionary composition was an attempt to deodorise his ethical problems,” as he “tried to deflect attention from those pertinent issues we raised about ethics.”
They maintained that “There is nothing he said to creditably detract a jot from our accurate summation of his well-known perverse and ignoble approach to media practice over the years, a practice that continues to undermine the integrity of journalism profession in the country.
“In his first statement attacking us, Obaigbena craftily attempted to mis-characterise as an attack on free speech, our principled stand against his blackmail to have Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu appear on Arise TV and its PDP sponsored Town Hall meetings.
“In the second statement, he was still adamant that our candidate must attend his Town Hall debate, despite our stance that our candidate is already executing another communications strategy to reach the most important target: the Nigerian voters.
“We repeat again: We will not make our candidate available to validate a scheme which, in the light of unassailable information at our disposal, is nothing but a racket by the Arise TV owner, designed to embarrass our candidate.”
The duo went further to counter Obaigbena’s clarifications on Wednesday in what they called “a blow-by-blow response to Obaigbena’s latest very poor attempt at red-herring.”
Speaking further on the Arise TV’s conduct of the presidential debate for the presidential candidates of various political parties ahead of the 2023 general elections, Onanuga and Alake said, “We took notice of Reuben Abati's ramblings on Arise TV on his Wednesday Morning Show where he laboured in vain to defend his despicable record and perversions. Abati queried our statement that he is a registered member of PDP.
“The query is rather for him. How did he become a deputy governorship candidate to Late Senator Buruji Kashamu in 2019 without a membership of PDP as required by law?”