A Chieftain of the All progressives Congress APC in Ekiti state, Senator Ayo Arise has refuted an online publication which reported that he stated his predisposition to the leadership style of President Muhamnadu Buhari.
The former senator in a press statement on Tuesday made available to Journalists and titled “Re: The First Thing I Saw on Tinubu’s Presidential Manifestos- Senator Ayo Arise ” said the online news claimed he advised the All progressives congress APC Presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to never thread in the part of Buhari if he (Tinubu) truly wants to win the general election.
Arise who admitted he granted interview with some conventional newspapers where he was well reported said the online platform largely misquoted his views and was misrepresented.
The statement reads:
“My attention has been drawn to a reckless report credited to me by one innocuous online platform where I purportedly claimed to have seen the Manifestos of the All Progressives Congress(APC) Presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) .
“The faceless reporter also went further to insinuate that I claimed to be very close to Tinubu and that I advised him(Tinubu) to distance himself from the policies of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration if he is desirous of winning the 2023 election.These are deliberate falsehood!
“And, whoever quoted me as saying that I am very close to Tinubu does
not know me in the first place. If I were even close to Tinubu, which I am not, I am decent enough not to advertise such or boast of such under any circumstances. I was not even in Tinubu’s camp at the last APC Presidential primaries. Nevertheless, it is still part of my responsibility to society to comment on challenges facing our polity from time to time.
“One of the issues I dwelled upon was the same faith controversy where I said that people needed to be educated about the circumstances that threw up the challenge.
“Another issue which I spoke extensively about was whether continuity would be the campaign mantra of the APC flagbearer. And my submissions were unambiguous. I opined that Tinubu would adopt the good policies of the current administration and also see how he could improve on where the government is facing some challenges, particularly in the area of
security. I argued that Tinubu would not be aspiring to be president basically to adopt all the policies of his predecessor but to bring in some fresh ideas.
“To show that the reporter is lacking in requisite knowledge about politics and Journalism. It is common knowledge that a candidate can only prosecute his or her campaign based on his input, in line with his party’s manifestos. As of the time of the malicious publication, no such candidates ‘manifesto’ existed.
My exact words
“Well, on Buhari’s legacies, I read a few things that Tinubu said he would do and the first one, in terms of tackling insecurity, is the fact that he would automatically start the process of having state police. I don’t think that if he says that he will continue with the legacies of President Buhari, he would just become President and start rubber-stamping everything that Buhari did.
“In terms of policies of this administration, you would notice that a few things focus on social benefits of the people to ease the burden of the downtrodden, now the implementation might be another question. Have those policies achieved what they were set out to achieve? To be sure, let me make it very clear, I do a few things for the government. I think our civil service needs complete overhaul. We are the ones responsible for the ailments of the country. Even though a leader can come in and begin to change things, the rot is so deep that when you even try, it becomes a problem and when Buhari started fighting corruption, we started hearing the slogan “corruption is fighting back”.
On Same faith leadership
“The Muslim-Muslim ticket is a decision that cannot be said to be perfect as there were situations for the Muslim-Christian ticket which ordinarily could have been ideal if not for the fact that the candidate happens to be a Muslim from the South-West. If the candidate had been a Christian, it would have been easier to pick a Muslim northerner.
“But since things happened the way it has happened, it is easier for a northern candidate who is a Muslim to pick a Christian southerner. That would have been the most reasonable thing to do but now that we have the reverse as the case, the condition on the ground is very clear that the northern population, may be 60, 70 percent Muslims and we are talking of numbers to win elections.
“After sitting down very well, you would discover that there are very able, intelligent, technically sound Christians but the question is, how many votes do they control in the North to be able to win the Northern votes? If the reverse had been the case to the South-West, it would have been a suicidal error for any northern candidate to pick a Muslim from the South since people of the Christian faith are more in the South.
“So, when you look at the situations that are emerging, he had very limited choices and, when you consider the fact that yes, there has been a similar situation in the past and, in reality, anybody that wants to rule this country must not make religion his priority. If you make religion your priority, then our chances for development is tending more towards zero.”
So all that were reported by the faceless online news were outright lies ,deliberately concocted to misrepresent me and probably put me against some political interests. It is indeed the figment of the imagination of the writer.
To set the record straight, at no time did I grant interview to the fictitious online platform and I have never met any of its reporters. I therefore wonder how the reporter came about the tissue of lies he published.
I granted interview recently to a few Newspapers and my views on the various issues raised were clearly captured by the various media houses under various sensational captions. The genuine newspapers largely reported the interview factually regardless of their captions.
” I am happy that none of the conventional media published the lies reported by the online media. Members of the public are therefore advised to disregard the online publication in its entirety as it did not emanate from me and hence cannot be taken as my opinions on the alleged issues raised”.