Laolu Akande, who served as spokesman to former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, has said the late President Muhammadu Buhari offered on at least four occasions to support Osinbajo’s 2022 presidential bid. His account directly challenges claims by former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, that Buhari regarded the ambition as immoral. The exchange has reopened one of the most debated chapters of the ruling All Progressives Congress, barely four months before the 2027 general elections.
Lawal made his claims in an interview published on YouTube on Thursday. “Buhari would find it highly immoral for Osinbajo to contest the same position with Bola Tinubu,” he said. He argued that Buhari valued loyalty above most things and would have been uncomfortable with Osinbajo challenging Tinubu, who recommended Buhari for the presidency and played a central role in Osinbajo’s emergence as running mate in 2015. Lawal added that Buhari would have held this view even if he believed Osinbajo might make a better president.
Lawal, however, conceded that his conclusion was not based on any conversation with the former President. He said he did not discuss the matter with Buhari, and that his view rested on Buhari’s character, actions and body language. He also alleged that Buhari was unhappy with appointments Osinbajo made while acting as president, claiming a memo of about 28 names contained mainly Yoruba appointees and members of Osinbajo’s church.
Akande rejected both claims in a statement issued on Saturday. “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?'” he said. He added that Buhari praised Osinbajo at a Federal Executive Council meeting in 2022 for running a dignified, issue-based campaign for the party ticket. “He spoke in a laudatory tone. The entire Council witnessed it,” Akande said.
The former spokesman described Lawal’s appointment claims as fabrications. He said Osinbajo served Buhari loyally for eight years with an inclusive team drawn from across the country. “The records are there for anyone who cares to check,” he said. Akande added that his years in the Office of the Vice President gave him firsthand knowledge of the relationship between the two men.
Neither account can now be tested against Buhari himself. The former President died in London on July 13, 2025, at the age of 82, without publicly addressing his private view of Osinbajo’s ambition. In the build-up to the 2022 primary, Buhari’s public position was that he had no anointed candidate, a stance that left room for competing interpretations of his preferences then and now.
The contest itself was decisive. At the APC presidential primary held in Abuja in June 2022, Tinubu polled 1,271 votes, ahead of former Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi with 316 and Osinbajo with 235. Then Senate President Ahmad Lawan came fourth with 152 votes. Osinbajo’s tally, roughly a tenth of the votes cast, was widely viewed as a sign that he lacked the backing of party power brokers, whatever Buhari’s private sentiments may have been.
Tinubu went on to win the February 2023 presidential election with 8,794,726 votes, about 36.6 per cent of the total, according to results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission. Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party polled 6,984,520 votes, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party scored 6,101,533. Lawal, who broke with the APC over its Muslim-Muslim ticket, backed Obi in that election and has since remained a vocal critic of the Tinubu administration.
The relationship between Tinubu and Osinbajo has been a recurring subject since the 2022 primary. Osinbajo, a professor of law and former Lagos State Attorney General under Tinubu, owed his entry into national politics largely to his former boss. His decision to seek the ticket against Tinubu was seen by some party figures as a breach of that relationship, and by his supporters as a legitimate exercise of his right to contest.
Osinbajo has not personally responded to Lawal’s claims. Lawal has also not indicated whether he will reply to Akande’s statement. With both men relying on recollections of private exchanges involving a President who is no longer alive, the dispute is likely to remain a contest of competing accounts.