Former presidential aide Laolu Akande has rejected Babachir Lawal’s claim that former President Muhammadu Buhari regarded Yemi Osinbajo’s presidential ambition as “highly immoral and distasteful”.
In a statement on Saturday, Akande, who served as Osinbajo’s spokesperson from 2015 to 2023, said Buhari personally offered to support the former vice-president’s ambition on at least four occasions. Lawal, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, had argued in a recent interview that Buhari would have struggled to support Osinbajo because of the former vice-president’s longstanding relationship with Bola Tinubu.
Akande said he watched the interview and decided to respond because he was present when decisions concerning Osinbajo’s office were taken. According to him, Buhari repeatedly asked Osinbajo: “If I don’t support you, who will I support?”
“He was consistent. During the APC presidential primaries in 2022, while campaigns were underway, President Buhari openly commended Vice President Osinbajo at a Federal Executive Council meeting for the dignified, issues-based manner in which he was conducting his campaign across the country. He spoke in a laudatory tone. The entire Council witnessed it,” Akande said. “That is not a President who found Osinbajo’s ambition distasteful. That is a President who broached it, encouraged and applauded it,” he added.
Osinbajo contested the All Progressives Congress presidential primary in June 2022, finishing third with 235 votes. Tinubu won the primary with 1,271 votes, followed by Rotimi Amaechi with 316. Tinubu subsequently won the 2023 presidential election.