Buhari never considered Osinbajo’s 2023 presidential bid immoral, Akande tells Lawal
Abdullateef Fowewe
Laolu Akande, former spokesperson to ex-Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, has rejected Babachir Lawal’s claim that the late former President Muhammadu Buhari considered Osinbajo’s 2023 presidential ambition “highly immoral and distasteful.”
Akande said Buhari, on the contrary, repeatedly offered to support Osinbajo during the 2022 APC primaries.
Lawal, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), made the allegation in a recent interview, arguing that Buhari’s long relationship with President Bola Tinubu would have made it difficult for him to back Osinbajo against Tinubu.
In a statement on Saturday, Akande said he was present in the Presidential Villa and directly familiar with the relationship between Buhari and Osinbajo.
He described Lawal’s account as false and insisted that the late president encouraged Osinbajo’s campaign.
“On the claim that President Buhari considered Osinbajo’s 2022 aspiration ‘immoral’, this is false.
“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?’” said Akande.
He added that Buhari publicly praised Osinbajo’s campaign at a Federal Executive Council meeting, commending what Akande called its “dignified, issues-based manner.”
“That is not a President who found Osinbajo’s ambition distasteful. That is a President who broached it, encouraged and applauded it,” Akande said.
Akande also dismissed Lawal’s claim that Osinbajo submitted a memo with more than 20 staff names, which was allegedly delayed by Buhari’s chief of staff before Lawal took it to the president.
He called the allegation “a complete fabrication,” saying no such memo existed.
According to Akande, Osinbajo had direct access to Buhari and routinely submitted memos for approval before forwarding them to his chief of staff, Ade Ipaye, for implementation.
He said the SGF’s involvement was limited to issuing appointment letters.
“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.
He further rejected Lawal’s allegation that Buhari referred to the appointees ethnically, saying such language was “alien” to the former president.
Akande also denied that Osinbajo appointed staff because they belonged to his church.
He argued that the Office of the Vice-President was religiously and regionally diverse, with representation from across Nigeria’s regions and both major faiths.
“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.
He cited Ade Ipaye, a Muslim lawyer, as the most senior official in Osinbajo’s office, and said three of Osinbajo’s four special advisers were Muslims, including two northerners.
On former Minister Okey Enelamah, Akande said his appointment was not connected to his role at the Redeemed Christian Church of God. He said Enelamah was recommended by two financial-sector figures and that the late Abba Kyari informed Osinbajo of Buhari’s decision.
Akande suggested that Lawal’s claims may be driven by lingering resentment over his removal as SGF by Buhari in 2017 over corruption allegations.
He said personal grievance could not justify what he described as fabrications against Osinbajo.
“To those of us who were there, this story is pure fiction,” Akande said, adding that Osinbajo served “with integrity.”
Lawal had told Symfoni TV that Buhari would have viewed it as “highly immoral” for Osinbajo to contest the presidency against Tinubu, but he acknowledged that he did not discuss the matter directly with Buhari.
