Former spokesperson to ex-Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Laolu Akande, has dismissed as falsehoods allegations made by former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, against Prof. Osinbajo.
Akande, in a detailed response on Tuesday, said he watched the video in which Lawal made a string of allegations against the former Vice President, noting that ordinarily such fabrications would not deserve a response.
He said his decision to respond was informed by the fact that he served as Osinbajo’s spokesperson and was in the room where many of the decisions referenced were taken, adding that the allegations also touched directly on staff of the Office of the Vice President.
On Lawal’s claim that President Muhammadu Buhari considered Osinbajo’s 2022 presidential aspiration “immoral,” Akande described it as false, stating that Buhari personally offered to support Osinbajo on at least four separate occasions.
According to him, Buhari told Osinbajo plainly: “If I don’t support you, who will I support?” He added that during the APC presidential primaries in 2022, Buhari openly commended Osinbajo at a Federal Executive Council meeting for his dignified and issues-based campaign.
On the alleged memo containing over 20 staff names, Akande said there was no such memo, describing Lawal’s claim that the memo was sat on by the President’s Chief of Staff and later taken to Buhari by Lawal as a complete fabrication.
He said anyone who knew President Buhari knows he does not engage in ethnic profiling, stressing that Osinbajo always had direct access to the President and took his memos directly for approval before passing them to his own Chief of Staff, Ade Ipaye.
Akande also faulted Lawal’s timeline, noting that he resumed in the Office of the Vice President in June 2015 alongside several colleagues, and as such there was no three-month delay as claimed, adding that different batches of memos were taken at different times as the office was being set up.
He said what actually happened in 2015 was standard practice, and that there was never a single bloated list, noting that by the time many of the appointments were made, Lawal had already been sacked by President Buhari for corrupt practices.
On claims that Osinbajo appointed staff based on church affiliation, Akande said the allegation is false and easily disproved by the staff list, describing the Office of the Vice President as one of the most inclusive and pan-Nigerian offices in that government.
He cited that the most senior official in the office, Deputy Chief of Staff to the President Ade Ipaye, is a Muslim, while three of Osinbajo’s four Special Advisers were Muslims, including two Northerners – Maryam Uwais and Dr. Ahmad Zakari – insisting that facts show no narrow religious agenda.
