The President-elect’s office has debunked the news that President-elect Bola Tinubu meets with Chief Justice of Nigeria Olukayode Ariwoola in London.
The President-elect’s office said there was no clandestine meeting between Bola Tinubu and the respected Chief Justice of our country, anywhere. It’s pure fabricated news, groundless in fact and authenticity.
Recall that an online newspaper reported that the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Olukayode Ariwoola, has allegedly been sighted in London, United Kingdom pretending to be a physically-challenged old man, for a secret meeting with the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
According to an online newspaper said Ariwoola’s disguising was a clandestine preparation for a meeting with Tinubu.
Mr. Ariwoola departed Nigeria on March 11 via Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, and was pushed in a wheelchair through the terminals to board a British Airways flight, sources said.
Upon arrival in London, Ariwoola was also wheeled into a hotel downtown, where he has remained ever since. But immediately after checking into the hotel, Ariwoola abandoned his wheelchair and started moving around the facility unaided. The Supreme Court head is not known with any physical disabilities, an online newspaper revealed.
The sources said, with Tinubu now in Europe before heading to Saudi Arabia for prayer rites, he would be meeting Mr Ariwoola in a secret arrangement to discuss issues unknown to Nigerians.
“The CJN deliberately left the country more than a week ahead of Tinubu to avoid any suspicion about why both of them disappeared at once,” a source familiar said. “That is why he travelled secretly and Tinubu also travelled secretly.”
“They thought that they could secretly move the president-elect abroad without anybody knowing about it,” a source said.
“That’s one of the several mistakes they made on this matter, asides from the belief that they could allow the Chief Justice of Nigeria to move about in a London hotel for several days undetected after going through the trouble of disguising him in a wheelchair.”
A Supreme Court source said Ariwoola wanted to meet Tinubu to discuss issues that may arise from the budding legal challenge to the declaration as president-elect, including whether or not he should be worried about the petitions recently filed by opposition parties.
But the President-elect’s office denied the story saying it was a pure concoction from the hallucinating minds of hatchet men bent on creating doubts and public distrust about the legitimacy of our recent election, which was won by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In a statement released by the Director of Media and Publicity of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga said there was no clandestine meeting between the President-elect and the respected Chief Justice of our country anywhere.
“Our attention has been drawn to the grossly fake, misleading, and malicious story about the Chief Justice of Nigeria Olukayode Ariwoola disguising to meet President-elect Bola Tinubu in London.
“The story was a pure concoction from the hallucinating minds of hatchet men bent on creating doubts and public distrust about the legitimacy of our recent election, which was won by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“We refute emphatically that there has been no clandestine meeting between the President-elect and the respected Chief Justice of our country, any where. It’s pure fabricated news, groundless in fact and authenticity.
“To show that the story was a mere salacious fiction, meant to draw traffic to the discredited purveyor, it claimed the Chief Justice left Nigeria for London on 11 March, on a wheelchair to board a plane.
“The President-elect left Nigeria on 21 March, 10 clear days thereafter. What kind of appointment or secret meeting will the two men have arranged in London, with so wide disparate arrival dates, except in the imagination of the false news merchants?
“We can confirm that the President-elect, who left Nigeria Tuesday has not been in London.
“He is right now in France to have a deserved rest, after a hectic campaign that began in January 2022.
“He will go to London thereafter before proceeding to Mecca for the lesser Hajj.
“As we move towards inauguration on 29 May 2023, Nigerians should expect more false and salacious news from a section of the Nigerian media, on the payroll of the opposition.
“We urge the media once again to cross-check their information from the President-elect media office before rushing to press”, Bayo Onanuga said.
