Laolu Akande, ex-spokesperson of former Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, has denied remarks by Babachir Lawal, a chieftain of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (ADC), concerning events that preceded the 2023 presidential election.
Lawal served as secretary to the government of the
federation (SGF) from 2015 to 2017, when former President Muhammadu Buhari
sacked him over alleged corruption.
In a recent interview, Lawal alleged that Buhari considered
it “highly immoral and distasteful” for Osinbajo to contest against President
Bola Tinubu in 2023.
The former SGF said Buhari would have found it difficult to
support Osinbajo’s presidential bid because of his longstanding relationship
with Tinubu, a former Lagos governor.
‘BUHARI OPENLY COMMENDED OSINBAJO’
In a statement on Saturday, Akande, who served as Osinbajo’s
spokesperson from 2015 to 2023, described Lawal’s claim as false.
He said he was privy to several decisions taken in the
Presidential Villa, particularly those concerning the relationship between the
former vice-president and Buhari.
“On the claim that President Buhari considered Osinbajo’s
2022 aspiration ‘immoral’, this is false,” Akande said.
“On at least four separate occasions, President Buhari
personally offered to support the Vice-President, telling him plainly: ‘If I
don’t support you, who will I support?’”
Akande said Buhari also publicly commended Osinbajo’s
campaign during the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primaries in
2022.
“Buhari openly commended Osinbajo at a Federal Executive
Council meeting for the dignified, issues-based manner in which he was
conducting his campaign across the country,” he said.
According to Akande, the former president praised Osinbajo
in front of the entire council.
“That is not a President who found Osinbajo’s ambition
distasteful. That is a President who broached it, encouraged and applauded it,”
he said.
Akande also dismissed Lawal’s claim that Osinbajo wrote a
memo containing more than 20 staff names, which was allegedly withheld by the
president’s chief of staff before Lawal took it to Buhari.
“Mr. Lawal’s claim that Osinbajo wrote a memo containing
over 20 staff names, which was sat on by the President’s Chief of Staff, and
which he, Mr. Lawal, then took to President Buhari, is a complete fabrication.
There was no such memo,” he said.
He also rejected Lawal’s account of Buhari allegedly
referring to the staff members by their ethnicity.
“Anyone who knew President Buhari knows he does not engage
in the kind of snide ethnic profiling Mr. Lawal attributed to him — ‘BD, these
are all Yorubas.’ That language and that conduct are alien to President
Buhari,” Akande said.
He said Osinbajo had direct access to Buhari and submitted
memos to the former president for approval before passing them to Ade Ipaye,
his chief of staff, for onward communication to the relevant agencies.
“At no stage did this require the SGF, except for the
subsequent issuance of appointment letters for staff,” he said.
‘HE HAD BEEN SACKED BEFORE THE APPOINTMENTS WERE MADE’
Akande disputed Lawal’s claim that the alleged memo was
delayed for three months.
“Mr. Lawal’s timeline also collapses. He claimed the memo
was delayed for three months. I resumed in the Office of the Vice President in
June 2015, alongside several other colleagues. So did many of those whose names
he now invents. There was no three-month delay,” Akande said.
“To those of us who were there, this story is pure fiction.”
He said Osinbajo submitted various memos to Buhari at
different times and “there was never a single, bloated, religiously and
ethnically-charged list. It is quite simply incredible that Mr Lawal would
create such falsehood”.
He added that Buhari had sacked Lawal before several of the
appointments were made.
“It is also noteworthy that by the time a good number of the
appointments were made, Mr Lawal had been sacked by President Buhari (not
Osinbajo) for corrupt practices,” he said.
ALLEGED PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT FOR CHURCH MEMBERS
Akande also rejected Lawal’s claim that Osinbajo appointed
staff because they belonged to his church, arguing that the composition of the
vice-president’s office reflected religious and regional diversity.
“The claim that Osinbajo appointed people because they were
church members is false and is easily disproved by the staff list itself. The
Office was one of the most inclusive, pan-Nigerian offices in that government —
North, South, East, West, Christian and Muslim,” he said.
“To suggest a narrow church agenda is not only to ignore the
facts, but to pursue a curious and worrying vendetta.”
He said Ade Ipaye, a Muslim and lawyer, was the deputy chief
of staff to the president and the most senior official in Osinbajo’s office.
Akande added that three of Osinbajo’s four special advisers
were Muslims, including two northerners.
He also dismissed Lawal’s claim that Okey Enelamah, former
minister of industry, trade and investment, was appointed because he was the
pastor who took over Osinbajo’s parish at the Redeemed Christian Church of God
(RCCG).
He said Enelamah was recommended by two people in the
financial services industry, adding that the late Abba Kyari, Buhari’s chief of
staff, informed Osinbajo of the president’s decision to appoint him.
The former presidential spokesman added that while Lawal may
still be reeling from the pains of his removal as SGF, “personal grievance
cannot justify the manufacture of falsehoods against a man who served with
integrity”.
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