Prince Uche Secondus, a former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has asked Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu’s managers to be open about the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) health status.
Secondus, who is the Technical Adviser to the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, stated this in response to Tinubu spat with Nduka Obiagbena, the owner of the ThisDAY and Arise media conglomerate.
According to him, rather than getting into a pointless argument with Obiagbena, Tinubu should be clear about his health status.
Secondus questioned why the APC presidential media team decided to divert from the task of promoting their principal, for which they were hired, and instead get into a confrontation with Obaigbena. Secondus claimed to have followed the issues underlying the ongoing war of words.
The APC team should have spent the time and effort to position their candidate favorably in the eyes of the public, Secondus said in a statement.
He said: “Unless they are surrendering to the town talks that they have nothing to sell in the current political space and have chosen to cause unnecessary distractions, given the persisting tireless role of Nigeria media in the socio-political development of this country from independence in 1960 and continued in the June 12 democratic struggle that birthed this Republic, one expects the media to get involved in some more pragmatic matters not on undesirable squabbles.
“From whatever perspective you want to look at it, Arise TV and THISADAY Newspapers have not gone outside the dictates of their profession in asking a presidential candidate of a ruling party to present himself for public scrutiny.
“It’s indeed an aberration that a person aspiring to rule over 200 million people is dodging from talking to them or answering their questions even from his media establishment.”
He advised the APC media not to hide the truth if their candidate is genuinely questioned in public, saying that doing so was necessary to avoid the dishonesty and propaganda of 2015 that led the nation to where it is today.
“The health of your candidate should worry you because it would be unpatriotic to foist on the country unhealthy person for a position that requires complete mental and physical alertness,” he said.
“I, therefore, wish to counsel the APC media to concentrate their energy and resources in pushing their candidate and his qualities if any to the public instead of dissipating energy and resources on a man whose contributions to the growth of the sector is glaring and outstanding,“ he added.