By Olatunji Oke
A House of Representatives member-elect, Mr Tunji Akinosi has debunked the alleged rumour making the rounds that his car was involved in an accident by knocking down a hawker.
Rather, he said the video making the rounds was done in a bad taste and an attempt to smear his personality.
“A Twitter user, @GazzetteNGR, had posted on his handle that my car was involved in an accident, hence engaged some people in a fight”.
He said that he would have ordinarily ignored the post, but as a Nigerian, there’s the need to put the issue straight, hence this statement released to newsmen.
The representative-elect said, “there was no accident, not to say there was a clash, you therefore need to ask the rationale behind the question, “can you see our lawmaker to be?
“The first thing that should ordinarily come to our mind is that we are all Nigerians, and more importantly, a lawmaker-elect, hence should protect and defend the citizens before any other thing. I cannot oppress any citizen, rather protect such from any oppression.”
He recounted his ordeal, according to the statement, “there was traffic along the Onikan axis due to the May Day celebration, and in an attempt to outwit each other, the hawkers were everywhere and along the hustling, one of them ran into my car side mirror and damaged it, immediately my driver stopped to pick the remains, the hawker fell on the floor claiming he had a broken leg, sensing the damage and expenses involved.
“Before you know what was going on, some individuals surrounded my car banging on the owner’s side asking me to come down that I had hit and wounded a hawker, but I answered them that my driver was already attending to the matter.
“A lady emerged from nowhere and shouting on top of her voice that she knows me and trying to disclose my identity.
“When the matter was becoming rowdy, I opted for two options, first was that, we will all first move to the police station to lodge a formal complaint and from there, to the General Hospital, Onikan, ready to pay all the bills if he is discovered to have a fractured leg and secondly, if he is not diagnosed of such, he will buy the complete set of my car side mirror.
“On hearing my options, the hawker jumped up begging me to allow him continue with his hawking, saying it was those people that asked him to pretend he had a fractured leg.
“The question is, as a lawmaker-elect, are we not entitled to some rights too or does it derobe us of being a Nigerian?.
The lawmaker-elect therefore, advised the general public to always be kind, gentle and reasonable in their action to any incident, rather than creating unnecessary scene.