The Ondo State Police Command has dismissed as false a report claiming that a vehicle in the convoy of the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, was responsible for the death of a nine-year-old girl in Akure on Thursday.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the First Lady was in Ondo State to launch the Renewed Hope Initiative Health Programme.
She also distributed 10,000 professional kits, comprising crocs and scrubs, to midwives in the South West zone.
In a statement, the spokesperson of the Ondo State Police Command and a Deputy Superintendent of Police, DSP Olushola Ayanlade, clarified that the claim, published by an online news medium, was entirely baseless and misleading.
Ayanlade said: “The attention of the Ondo State Police Command has been drawn to a false and misleading report published by Sahara Reporters on April 17.
“It alleged that the convoy of the first lady, Senator Oluremi, was responsible for the tragic death of a young girl in Akure.
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“Eyewitness accounts and preliminary investigations conducted by the command confirm that the incident was caused by a hit-and-run driver operating an unregistered white Lexus vehicle.
“And not by any vehicle associated with the first lady’s convoy.”
According to Ayanlade, a witness, who observed the hit-and-run incident, pursued the fleeing vehicle on a motorcycle immediately after the crash, which occurred in the Oba-Ile area of Akure.
The witness accounts were corroborated by several individuals at the scene, as well as by the victim’s parents.
The statement added: “Furthermore, Sahara Reporters inaccurately claimed the deceased girl was nine years old.
“According to her parents, the child was actually seven years old, highlighting the publication’s disregard for factual accuracy, even in a matter as sensitive as this.”
The command’s Commissioner was said to have personally visited the grieving family and assured them of a full and transparent investigation into the incident.
“At no point was the first lady’s convoy involved in this tragedy,” the spokesperson reaffirmed.
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