By Elsie Udoh
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) has debunked a viral letter making rounds on Twitter.
On Wednesday, Akin Akinwale, an APC member in Oyo State shared an open letter allegedly signed and written by the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu to a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George.
In the letter, Tinubu urged the PDP chieftain to shelve his thoughts of exile and retirement following his emergence as President-elect.
“It will not be a thing of happiness for me that my emergence as President-elect will herald your departure from public life in Lagos and Nigeria. I, therefore, urge you to shelve all thoughts of self-exile and political retirement,” the letter partly read.
However, this letter, which generated a stir on the internet as some Twitter users referred to the letter as a great display of showmanship on the part of Tinubu, was said to be fake.
Bayo Onanuga, the Director of Media and Publicity of the APC PCC debunked the letter and wrote that Tinubu did not write any letter to Chief George.
“The President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not issue any statement on Chief Bode George. The viral statement in circulation purportedly signed by him is FAKE,” he wrote.
More persons have also confirmed that the letter is false including a fact-checking site, FactCheck Elections, which looked into the authenticity of the letter and shared via their Twitter page that the letter was never written by Tinubu.
They also tagged the initiator of the letter, Akin Akinwale in a tweet and wrote,
“Dear @mrlurvy, we’ve done a fact-check on this development and confirmed it is FALSE, the president-elect @officialABAT did not issue any statement to Chief Bode George.”
Recall Chief Bode George had publicly declared that he was going to renounce his citizenship and relocate from Nigeria if Tinubu emerged winner of the 2023 presidential election. Whether he would follow his own words, however, remains unknown.
