Oyo APC denies guber candidate touched journalist inappropriately while sitting on his lap, explains what happened
By Mercy Ajekigbe
The campaign team of the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Oyo State, Senator Sharafadeen Alli, has addressed the controversy surrounding a viral video showing the senator with a male journalist seated on his lap.
The team described the short clip as a misrepresentation of the entire interaction between the student and the senator.
It disclosed in a statement on Wednesday that the student and other students were members of the Department of Banking and Finance at The Polytechnic, Ibadan. They had visited Alli at his campaign office to invite him to their programme and conducted an interview with him.
The team further explained that the students had arrived at a time when the available seats were insufficient for everyone, prompting Alli, in what they described as a “a spontaneous and fatherly gesture” to offer one of the students to sit on his lap so the interview could proceed.
They condemned efforts by online media in sexualizing the interaction and urged members of the public to disregard the misleading narratives being circulated.
“It is deeply unfortunate that political desperation has descended to this level, where an ordinary interaction between a fatherly political leader and students who came to seek support for their programme is deliberately twisted into something sordid,” the campaign team said.
The statement maintained that Senator Alli has consistently engaged openly with young people, students, community members in Oyo State and had nothing to hide
“Those who know Senator Sharafadeen Alli understand his disposition towards young people and his fatherly relationship with them. There is no basis whatsoever for the offensive insinuations being attached to this video,” it stated.
They also called on media organisations and social media users to exercise responsibility in reporting the incident, reinforcing that digital platforms should not be used to damage reputations through sensationalism.
The campaign team urged the public to reject what it described as “cheap political blackmail”, insisting that the 2027 governorship election in Oyo State should focus on ideas, competence, development and the welfare of the people instead.
