The campaign organisation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Oyo State, Senator Sharafadeen Alli, has dismissed insinuations that a viral video showing the politician interacting with a student had any sexual or inappropriate undertone.
This was just as the campaign described the interpretation of the footage as a deliberate attempt to manufacture controversy around what it said was an ordinary interaction between Alli and students of The Polytechnic, Ibadan.
The reaction followed the publication of a video showing Alli seated with a male student on his lap during an interview, with the politician appearing to touch or caress the student. The footage generated mixed reactions online, with some viewers questioning the nature of the interaction.
However, in a statement issued in Ibadan on Wednesday and made available to journalists, the campaign organisation said the video had been taken out of context.
According to the campaign, the student and others featured in the footage had visited Alli to seek his support for one of their programmes and to conduct an interview with him.
It explained that the venue became crowded when the students arrived, with the number of people exceeding the available seating capacity.
The campaign said Alli subsequently invited one of the students to sit on his lap in what it described as a spontaneous and fatherly gesture, allowing the interview to proceed despite the shortage of chairs.
“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 said.
It insisted that there was nothing sexual or suggestive about the interaction and accused some online platforms of deliberately assigning an inappropriate meaning to the footage.
The campaign further maintained that Alli had over time cultivated an open relationship with young people, students and other groups across Oyo State.
“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.
The organisation urged members of the public and media organisations to consider the broader context surrounding the footage rather than relying on a brief video segment to draw conclusions about the politician’s conduct.
It also cautioned against the circulation of materials that could damage an individual’s reputation, particularly during a politically charged period.
The campaign argued that political disagreements should be expressed through issues, policies and competing visions for governance rather than what it described as misleading narratives and personal attacks.
It called on residents of Oyo State to reject what it termed “cheap political blackmail” and urged that the 2027 governorship contest be focused on competence, development, policies and the welfare of the people.
The campaign said Alli remained committed to engaging voters across the state and would not be distracted by what it described as efforts to create controversy around his candidacy.
