In the piece under the headline ‘Politics of absenteeism at Buhari’s project commissioning in Lagos’, published on April 29, your writers made a deliberately misleading claim as follows:

“On Osun governor, Oyetola, a source explained: ‘He doesn’t want to play to the gallery by coming when his two principals Tinubu, and his immediate past predecessor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola deliberately stayed away from the event. If Oyetola had come for the commissioning it would have meant disloyalty to Tinubu and Aregbesola.”

This is outright falsehood caused by lack of diligence by the writers and or outright mischief. A phone call to an appropriate official before publication would have cleared the air.

On the day in question, Wednesday April 24, 2019, Governor Adegboyega Oyetola was at the Court of Appeal in Abuja for the hearing of his Osun State Governorship Election Petition matter, where he is the appellant.

The governor was in court between 7.30am and around 5pm. He could not have been in two places simultaneously.

The story and photograph of his appearance in court were published the following day by many newspapers including The Guardian.

Yes, he was invited for the inauguration of the projects, but before the day, he conveyed his apology because of the need to attend that hearing.

Governor Oyetola harbours no ill feeling against his brother Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode
* Adeniyi Adesina is Chief Press Secretary to Governor Adegboyega Oyetola