Use Of Donald Duke’s Pictures ‘Unintentional Mix-up’ – Tinubu Campaign Council
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) has described it as
“unintentional mix-up” use of the pictures of former governor of Cross River State, Mr Donald Duke in a documentary to celebrate Asíwájú Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the APC in the next year’s election.
A picture of a 12-year-old boy along with a similar photo of be-suited Asíwájú donning an Afro Hair popular in the 70s and 80s were prominent in some Tinubu’s campaign materials, on his websites and Twitter account. Mr Duke was to later claim that both pictures were actually his as a 12-year-old student of Federal Government Secondary School in Sokoto.
However APC PCC in a statement by its director, Media and Publicity, Mr Bayo Onanuga said no one, and not even Asiwaju’s personal photographers and the artists who designed the materials, have been able to explain how the photo was mixed up with the other photo, that represents Asíwájú’s teenage years. “They all said they got both photographs in Google search”.
Mr Onanuga said the campaign council has apologised to Mr Duke. “We have called former governor Donald Duke to apologise for the unintentional mix-up and the error.
“The usage was an honest mistake for which all involved have accepted responsibility.
“We want to make it abundantly clear that Asíwájú Tinubu did not authorise the appropriation of another person’s image as his own.
“We also want to absolve the Presidential Campaign Council of any blame”.
The Council however took a swipe at individuals who sought to make political capital out of the development, appealing to them to be reasonable.
“To the traducers, who have been attacking Asíwájú Tinubu for what he knew nothing about, we want to appeal to them to be reasonable over this matter.
“We are in a campaign season where many supporters go out of their way to produce jingles, documentaries, posters, billboard materials and other promotional materials without the approval of candidates across political parties.
“The campaign council has in the meantime established a process for clearance and approval by individuals and support groups who seek to produce campaign materials for media use”.
