NEWS
Campaign Team Explains Viral Video Showing Oyo APC Guber Candidate With Polytechnic Student
The campaign organisation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Oyo State, Senator Sharafadeen Alli, has offered an explanation for a viral video showing the politician with a student of The Polytechnic, Ibadan, sitting on his lap.
The footage, which has generated significant reactions across social media, captured Alli interacting with the student during what his campaign team described as a visit by students from the institution’s Department of Banking and Finance.
According to the campaign organisation, the students had visited Alli at his campaign office in Mokola, Ibadan, to extend an invitation to him to attend their programme and also conduct an interview with him.
The campaign team explained that the unusual seating arrangement occurred because the number of people who came for the engagement exceeded the available seating capacity at the office.
According to the campaign team, “the number of people present exceeded the available seating capacity, leaving insufficient chairs for everyone.”
It said that, rather than allowing the situation to disrupt the planned interview, Alli asked one of the students to sit on his lap so that the engagement could continue.
The clarification came after the video circulated widely online, attracting mixed reactions over the interaction between the APC candidate and the student. In the footage, Alli was also seen briefly caressing the student’s lap, a moment that prompted some social media users to question the nature of the interaction and interpret the gesture in different ways.
However, the campaign organisation strongly rejected such interpretations, accusing some online platforms and commentators of deliberately attempting to sexualise what it described as an ordinary interaction between a politician and students who had visited him.
The campaign team described Alli’s action as “a spontaneous and fatherly gesture” and maintained that the incident had been taken out of context.
“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 organisation further appealed to members of the public to consider the circumstances surrounding the video rather than relying solely on interpretations emerging from social media.
“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 campaign team also criticised what it described as sensational reporting and the use of digital platforms to promote narratives capable of damaging an individual’s reputation without adequate context.
It urged media organisations, bloggers and social media users to exercise caution and responsibility when discussing the footage, particularly as political activities ahead of the 2027 governorship election continue to gather momentum in Oyo State.
The controversy has placed renewed attention on the growing influence of social media in political campaigns, where short video clips can rapidly circulate and generate competing interpretations before the circumstances surrounding an incident are fully established.
While the campaign organisation insisted that there was nothing inappropriate about the encounter, it urged the public to disregard what it called misleading narratives and focus instead on the candidate’s political programme and engagement with young people.
The team described the controversy as an attempt to distract from the broader issues surrounding the forthcoming election and urged political actors to concentrate on substantive issues affecting residents of Oyo State.
It called on the public to reject what it described as “cheap political blackmail”, arguing that the 2027 governorship election should be centred on ideas, competence, development
and the welfare of the people.