Date Published: 07/16/09

Funding of Ghana NDC: I don't have boundaries -Tinubu

BOLA TINUBU

Former Lagos State Governor, Mr. Bola Ahmed on Monday in Lagos reacted to the alleged intelligence report on his purported roles in bankrolling the election of President John Attah Mills of Ghana, declaring, “My struggle for democracy, honest, free and fair election will have no boundaries.”

The man popularly praised for installing the leadership that Lagosians claim is working for them with Babatunde Fashola as governor, emphatically said that there would be no limit to his rights to pursue freedom, liberty and happiness.

Tinubu spoke with reporters at Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka’s 75 th birthday, organized by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism at the Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos.

Tinubu said he was not obliged to react to speculations.

“There are no limits to my rights to pursue freedom, liberty and happiness. So, if you give me a bank, that I would roll, and for the sake of democracy, I would roll it.  I give you the fact that we cannot have a free and fair election in Nigeria as a good example.

“ Nigeria is about to be fifty and it is still in the incubator and using diapers; A fifty year old baby that bed-wets in elections, lying to its own people.

“Now, those who are helping it to stimulate that lie, those who are resorting to name-calling and blackmail should not be part of our democratic struggle because they are not democrats.”

It was the first time Tinubu had been ever asked the question directly since the allegations were first exclusively reported by pointblanknews.com.

Tinubu had initially carpeted the nouveax practice of media houses creating special awards as antithetical to good Journalism practice and objectivity.

He said: “It is two ways, please. The quality and professional standard of Journalists need to be looked in

“The remuneration too, should be looked into.

He said, “Good insurance package should assure good Journalists and reward Journalists. It is worthy of serious standard efforts. Those are the areas. But again, the awards are worthy to be kicked against.

“What do you mean by Governor of the Year? What do you mean by Transaction of the Year? What do you mean by all those categorizations?