A chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu, on Tuesday debunked reports that he recently purchased a new airplane.
Mr. Tinubu, who ruled as Lagos State governor between 1999 and 2007, described the report as false, stressing that the publication was partial and unfair in the said report.
THISDAY newspaper had in its July 23 edition said that the former Lagos governor recently purchased a new airplane.
But Mr. Tinubu, in a statement released on Tuesday and signed by his Special Assistant, Ademola Oshodi, said the story was false and the newspaper partisan.
“The THISDAY story of Sunday, July 23, 2017 claiming Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has recently purchased a new airplane is symptomatic of what happens when a publication divorces itself from any pretence of objective and impartial reportage,” the statement said.
“This is what happens when a newspaper becomes a mercenary tool for partisan designs. THISDAY has a partisan axe to grind and it seeks to grind that axe against someone like Asiwaju Bola Tinubu because that is what the paymasters of THISDAY demand of it.
“So eager to be seen as loyal to the whims of its paymasters, THISDAY stands disloyal to the very truth it professes to publish. Rather than practise journalism, this publication now specialises in peddling rumour and manufacturing fake scandal.
One of the paper’s favourite excursions into fiction is to publish any and all things false about Bola Tinubu. Why THISDAY has such animus against Tinubu only the paper can answer. That such irrational hatred exists cannot be controverted.”
The statement also faulted the pictures attached to the publication, saying they were doctored and not genuine.
“Tinubu has not purchased a new plane. He is currently using the same plane he has used for over a decade now,” Mr. Oshodi said.
He also explained further that the only plane the APC leader owns is the same plane that was used during the general elections of 2011 and 2015, which aided the APC campaign efforts and eventual victory at the polls.
Mr. Oshodi who claimed that the report was targeted at embarrassing Mr. Tinubu, noted that if an investigation had been carried out before the publication, the ‘fake’ report would have been discarded.
“But these merchants of fake news are more interested in attacking perceived enemies than in enlightening the public as should be the call of a newspaper,” the statement said.
The statement argued that if authors of the publication had checked the photograph they published, they would have noticed that the pictures revealed spaces with different interiors.
“They would have easily seen that (Mr.) Tinubu’s picture was superimposed to a space he has not been,” Mr. Oshodi said, adding that the controversial report was “sensational, shoddy and false.”
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