Media organisation, Arise Television has apologised to the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, over a fake report.
The television station had claimed that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is investigating a drug case in the United States involving the former Governor of Lagos State.
However, INEC in a statement by its National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, in Abuja on Saturday, said the electoral agency is not investigating Tinubu.
The INEC, therefore, described the report as the handiwork of mischief makers and purveyors of fake news.
Okoye had said: “A press release purported to have been issued by the Commission has been trending online since yesterday Friday Nov. 11, 2022.
It claims that the commission has commenced investigation into a case of criminal forfeiture against one of the Presidential candidates in the forthcoming general election and is liaising with a Court in the United States of America in pursuit of same to determine possible violation of our guidelines or the Electoral Act 2022.
We wish to state categorically that the said press release did not emanate from the commission nor is it pursuing the purported course of action. It is the handiwork of mischief makers and utterly fake.”
But in a retraction on Sunday morning, the Management of Arise TV apologised over the fake report after INEC publicly dismissed it as fake.
The station said: “Of criminal forfeiture of funds, linked to narcotics, smuggling conspiracy and money laundering against the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress Bola Ahmed Tinubu, we Arise News that carried the news, which is now been denied by after the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC and we apologise most sincerely to the APC presidential candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the earlier broadcast.”
