By OKECHUKWU PEACE
The National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has stated that some mischief-makers have been trying to destroy his relationship with President Muhammadu Buhari through planted media reports.
He said the smear campaign was tagged, ‘Destroy the reputation of Tinubu and his relationship with Buhari’.
Tinubu said this in a statement by his media aide, Mr. Sunday Dare, on Tuesday.
The former Lagos governor was recently quoted in the media as saying that president Buhari will not last beyond 2019 in office.
Tinubu alleged that some of them were being probed for corruption and had decided to push him into the controversy to whip up public sympathy.
He said, “The individuals behind the plot are mostly scared PDP elements made frightened by the Buhari anti-corruption campaign. They direct this falsehood at Tinubu in the futile mission of trying to drive a wedge between the President and Tinubu to disrupt the progress being made against corruption and to destabilise the APC.
“But their PDP is already something by-gone, buried under the mass of its corruption and wrongdoing. They fight for a cause that has no cause. They are mercenaries of all the ills and defects that the people want excised from our body politic. Thus, we must do the people a public service.”
He also denied reports that he partook in the $2.1bn arms scam.
Tinubu said he had a list of the blogs that were carrying the false news and would soon expose their sponsors.
He said, “In the last six weeks, the Tinubu Media Office has monitored the stream of false, distorted media accounts written against Bola Ahmed Tinubu. We have learned that there is a concerted, wilful campaign tagged, ‘Destroy the reputation of Tinubu and his relationship with Buhari.’
“As part of this ugly plot to cultivate the worst of lies against the national leader of the APC, several blogs and online sites recruited to launch this smear campaign have manufactured stories to advance this sinister plan to taint the public mind with gross lies disguised as news reports and interviews.
“Fallacious headlines such as ‘Reasons why I collected N9m-Tinubu’ and ‘I will not return N9m-Tinubu”. “I am afraid PDP will stop Buhari in 2019 – Tinubu,’ are being paraded. Try as hard as they can the creators of these false tales and misleading headlines will fail miserably.
“Their stories cannot stand up to the slightest scrutiny. They are patently false and we condemn in the strongest terms those involved in this anti-Tinubu racket.”
Tinubu said such a smear campaign was nothing but libel and would not be taken likely.
He added, “While these fellows may think themselves cunning, they might have outwitted their very selves. In writing these stories, they have committed clear libel. In abusing the media office letterhead and name, their misrepresentations amount to forgery.
