The Obi-Datti Media Office has accused the presidential campaign of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, of planning to launch a multi-million media campaign, dubbed “Killer Punch”, to spread lies about the Labour Party candidate, Mr Peter Obi.
Head of Media, Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Diran Onifade, stated this in a Monday statement.
He alleged that N500 million has been disbursed by Tinubu’s camp for the smear campaign.
Onifade said that the media campaign was being spearheaded by “Tinubu’s media handlers led by the trio of Femi Fani-Kayode, Festus Keyamo, SAN and Adamu Garba”.
“Already, they have been releasing snippets of the documentary on social media, without getting any attention, as people already know about their desperation to drag down Obi, who they rightly know, is far ahead.
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“This documentary of lies and falsehood, which they have fabricated, attempts to portray Mr. Obi as a drug peddler, killer and sexual pervert among other innuendos in their fertile imagination.
“Already, the Obi-Datti Media Office is aware, that they are a product of a strategy session between Tinubu and selected members of his media team, where Tinubu reportedly accused his media handlers of not “punching to knock out” and not doing enough, to halt Obi’s unprecedented progress.
“He therefore demanded more wild propaganda from them, against his opponents, especially Obi, with the objective of throwing anything at the opponents to win, regardless of ethics or morality.”
Onifade said that the Obi-Datti Media Office would continue to be “amused over the desperation, to search for faults on the presidential front runner, and their apparent frustration, of not finding any”.
He said that Obi has remained the most fact-checked among the four top presidential candidates “for the obvious reasons that he is the only one running an issues-driven campaign, and therefore provoking intellectual conversations, and gaining more supporters, daily, nationwide”.
He said Tinubu’s alleged instruction to his media to bring down Obi at all cost “is a clear indication of their hopelessness”.
He said that the Obi-Datti Media Campaign Office has all the “details of their machinations, including some anti-Obi persons, already contacted for a role in the so-called ‘Killer Punch’ documentary’, and also the release of N500m for this failed smear campaign”.
“International media recently did a comprehensive check on the fake news generated on the LP flag bearer, which highlighted designs to cast aspersions on this new awakening, that beckons from Nigeria, and indeed Africa.
“Just a few weeks ago, in the South East, some hirelings had recorded a fake video, where some gunmen pretended to be punishing a man for wearing a Peter Obi T-shirt, while the image was actually that of a PDP candidate, Peter Mbah, but the doctored video was misrepresented to refer to Peter Obi.
“Another sponsored video is also going round, dishing out libelous and unsubstantiated lies against Obi’s clearly outstanding eight-year tenure as Governor of Anambra State.
Clearly, these will not be the last of the despicable media lies and falsehood.
“Our mission this day, is to alert and warn discerning minds, especially those desirous to see a new Nigeria emerge through Peter Obi, to ignore and treat as thrash any doctored and faked media items on Obi.
The Obi-Datti Media Office will continue to expose their deceptive actions which have roundly failed, since our candidate has demonstrated unequivocally that he is the best man for the job.”
The Tinubu-Shettima Campaign Office has not responded to the allegation.