Tinubu faults reports on illness, disquiet in APC campaign council 

The National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, has described as “fake news,” the story making the round that he recently collapsed as a result of ill -health.

Reports in a section of the media had it that Tinubu slumped, collapsed and was rushed to the National Hospital in Abuja shortly after he was appointed as Co-Chairman of the President Buhari Campaign Council during the week.

Fielding questions from reporters at the Lagos Governor’s lodge in Abuja shortly after he met with Southwest traditional rulers, Tinubu also faulted notions that the absence of APC governors during the inaugural meeting of the campaign council had to do with perceived disquiet in the ranks of party’s chieftains.

Asked to respond to the issues, he simply retorted: “Fake news. Whoever is manufacturing it, you better not believe them. That is negative and fake news too. “The point is, the governors had to stay back home because we all don’t have to converge in one place to decide certain modalities when we can easily go back to them on what was discussed and what we expect from your state. That is what we call structuring in an election.”He described the visit by the traditional rulers led by Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, as an attestation that they had endorsed the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“I am very happy and proud of the very promising situation. When you have the endorsement of your royal fathers, it means you have the people with you and the voice of the people is the voice of God. I am elated.“The royal fathers spoke of the need for a peace election. When you have the belief that you can get a proper result, you work hard because you want peace. When you believe that you can win, you don’t want violence.

“We all love our children, our brothers and our followers and none of us would want our followers to become sacrificial lambs. We won’t encourage violent disruption of any election, because we are confidence of winning. Those who are crying wolf before the election have already accepted defeat, as far as I am concerned.”He accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, of conniving with former President Olusegun Obasanjo to deny Lagos State its statutory allocations aimed at undermining the state.

“When we led a protest to Atiku then, he said, ‘go away. Go and comply. Without those allocation, you cannot bring development.’“When we said we needed power to power Lagos and the industrial base in our region, they said no. They were taking away N250 million from our allocation every month for being innovative and creative. Everywhere we turn, they rejected us and punished us. “But we never gave up. Today, we are in that progressive development championed and led by Buhari.”