Controversy continue to dog the rebuttal by the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, that funded the funeral of the father of Arise TV anchor Rufai Oseni.
Oseni, the popular co-host of Arise TV’s morning show is often critical of the Nigerian government and perceived to be soft on Obi and his Labour Party.
A former aide to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, Pastor Reno Omokri, suggested in a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, that the donation to Oseni might have influenced the fiery broadcaster’s opinions in favour of Obi.
Oseni was popular with the opposition supporters who saw him as a beacon of speaking truth to power. Called Obidents, Obi’s supporters lauded the TV anchor’s brutal takedowns of the Nigerian government and its officials.
But Obi insisted in a statement that he has never bribed Oseni or any journalist or tried to influence opinions in his favour.
“I have never and will never monetarily induce any journalist to speak or write in my favour. When I am invited to birthday celebrations or funerals, people know that I do attend,” Obi said.
“Countless journalists, media personnel, the less privileged, the wealthy etc.,have all invited me to their occasions, and they will attest to the fact that I honour such invitations, especially when people are grieving. I have never been to Rufai’s village. Even at the point of writing this, I do not know where he is from.”
In reply to Obi’s statement, Omokri doubled down on his claim that the opposition leader made donations to Oseni, noting that Obi deliberately “use semantics to dodge” the question and refused to answer the question about whether or not he made donations to Oseni for his father’s funeral.
“I asked a question that Mr. Peter Obi has NOT answered and has tried to use semantics to dodge,” the former presidential aide said,” Omokri noted.
“My question is this: Did Peter Obi fund the funeral of Mr Rufai Oseni’s father by giving him money in cash or via electronic means, either directly or through a third party, and has that influenced Mr. Oseni’s open bias in favour of Peter Obi, whereby Mr. Oseni used the AriseTV platform as a medium to campaign for and launder the image of Mr Peter Obi, and his undisguised personal animosity towards me for my refusal to support Mr Peter Obi’s Presidential ambition.”
Similarly, Omokri, in other posts on X, accused Arise TV’s Rufai Oseni of lying to Nigerians that he (Mr Oseni) obtained a “subpoena” from Chicago State University (CSU) denying Tinubu’s studentship at the institution.
Months before the election, Omokri, who is a member of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), published a video of himself at the Chicago State University, where he had gone to verify if Tinubu, who was then the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, was a student at the school.
Omokri said the school told him that Tinubu attended the university.
In a social media challenge he tagged #PublishTheSubpoena, Omokri challenged Oseni to publish the said subpoena he had on Tinubu.
