APC PCC demands apology from national daily, publisher over alleged calumny

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

All Progressive Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council has demanded apology from a national daily for allegedly carrying its campaign of calumny against the party’s presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, too far on Friday, with a fake report about the death of a medical doctor, Kolapo Akande, who was the husband of Lola Akande, a commissioner in Lagos.

PCC, in a statement by Bayo Onanuga said the report denigrated Kolapo Akande and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, accusing the duo of being involved in drug trade.

“Not caring a hoot about the need to respect the dead, the paper painted Akande as a drug lord, who had ‘lived under the radar’ and had stayed aloof from people”. Unknown to ThisDay, their imagined ‘hibernating’ Kolapo was an Accord Party candidate for the House of Representatives some years back.

“But in the paper’s pursuit of its jaundiced,  cash and carry journalism, it gleefully reported that Kolapo Akande was the same Mueez Akande mentioned in the shuttered  30 year-old drug investigation against  our candidate in the U.S.

“But it was all false. ThisDay wrote a mere fiction and had relied on a false tweet by one David Hundeyin, a hatchet writer and so-called investigative journalist, who has identified himself as a Peter Obi supporter.

“Any reasonable publishing house ought to be wary about any information coming from such a biased person. But not ThisDay. Anything that portrays Tinubu in a very bad light is fair game, as such a report will justify the tons of Naira that accompanies it.

“The report has, however. turned into a huge embarrassment for the paper and further dented its credibility and integrity. ThisDay should be truly ashamed of its ethical standards. It descended so low that even the despicable David Hundeyin, said to be desperate for  asylum in the UK, excoriated the newspaper for the report”, the party said.