The All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, was absent from the presidential candidates’ debate because of his engagements, the APC Campaign Council said on Sunday.
According to The PUNCH, the debate clashed with his (Tinubu’s) engagements.
Aside from Tinubu, the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, was also absent from the debate held at Transcorp Hilton in Abuja. He was, however, represented by his running mate, Ifeanyi Okowa.
But justifying Tinubu’s absence on Sunday night, the Director of Media and Communications, Bayo Onanuga, explained that the debate clashed with Tinubu’s campaign town hall meeting in Niger State.
“We are in Minna now for engagement with farmers and agro-commodities groups ahead of tomorrow. The media cannot suddenly come up with a debate and wants us to drop everything we are doing to attend it. It is wrong. We also have our campaign schedule to attend to,” The PUNCH quoted him as saying.
He added, “Are we going to use jet to travel to Minna? As I earlier told you, we are in Minna already and cannot make it to the programme. In our own case, their proposal clashes with the campaign programme of our candidate. That’s why we didn’t turn up,” he stated.
