The Ondo State chapter of the Labour Party (LP), has condemned the move by Channels Television to restrict the planned governorship election debate to only two political parties.
While stressing that the media outfit was ill-advised, Labour Party maintained that the decision was not the representation of reality in the state.
The Director of Publicity, Labour Party Campaign Organisation, Johnson Egbodofo, who berated the organisers for limiting the live debate to candidates of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, explained that the LP as a party had drawn the attention of the organisers to the error while they promised to make amends, but nothing was done.
Egbodofo disclosed that the portrayal of the standard-bearers of the APC and PDP as two leading candidates ahead of the November 16 governorship election was a ploy to manipulate the choices of the people.
“The attention of the Labour Party and its candidates in the Ondo State Governorship Election scheduled for the 16th day of November 2024 has been drawn to an advert by Channels Television of its planned live debate on Sunday, 3rd November 2024, for candidates of the ruling APC and PDP, which Channels ill-advisedly described as the two leading candidates in the election.
“As a media-friendly organisation and personalities, we took immediate steps to contact CHANNELS and its officials, particularly Seun Okinbaloye, who is the anchor of the debate, not to use the station’s authoritative media status to mislead but to accord the people of Ondo State and the station’s global audience the opportunities of a fair assessment of the status of the political parties and quality of the candidates for the election.”