Newly elected member of the House of Representatives for Ado-Odo/Ota Federal Constituency in Ogun State, Engr Tunji Akinosi, has refuted claims in the media for allegedly assaulting a woman activist describing it as false, baseless, and lacked any iota of truth.
According to the immediate past Commissioner for Forestry in Ogun State in a press release, he said “My attention has been drawn to a biased report on my person in Tuesday’s edition of the dailies, their online platforms and social media handles, Twitter, where I was alleged to have attacked Abiodun Thomas, who was assumed to be making a case for a roadside hawker in an incident in Onikan, Lagos.
“Quoting one of the news mediums, our correspondent gathered that Akinosi’s black Prado Jeep brushed the hawker, and he fell on the ground, groaning in pain. Whereas it was the opposite of the incident.
“The said hawker in his bid to outrun his fellow hawkers to sell his stuff to persons in a bus in front of my vehicle, bruised the side mirror of my vehicle and the mirror fell, the hawker, coming to realize the error he has made quickly sat on the ground feigning injury.
“This resulted in an altercation, with the said activists and her ‘Blackmail Gang’, as only God knows where they were coming from.
“I don’t want to join issues with the media which I owe in high esteem, but they should have verified the incident before going to press.
“Despite giving my side of the incident to the reporter, he went ahead to misinform the public by trying to riddle my character and person.
“Put my Honourable Member-Elect tag aside. Don’t I have a right to fair reportage on the incident as well? For me, that’s a question begging for an answer.
“To add salt to injury, a video on the incident, I don’t know how it came about, from a smartphone they claimed I smashed was on social media a few hours later, for what purpose, if not blackmail.
“I was just a victim of circumstance in this whole blackmail drama, as they knew that I, being a Federal Lawmaker, would fall prey to their antics and in the long run yield to their demands.
“As a law-abiding citizen of Nigeria and one who knows his limits and rights, I don’t deserve this negative media attention, as the report was full of biases.”
