The Osinbajo for President Media Council on Tuesday said it has uncovered a fraudulent plan to malign the reputation of Yemi Osinbajo, Vice President of Nigeria and a Presidential Aspirant on the platform of the APC.
This is as the Vice President who recently declared his interest in the presidential ticket of the APC, had a closed door interaction with Presided Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday.
Although details of the meeting were not made available to the public, BusinessDay Villa sources said the meeting was not unconnected with the Vice President’s 2023 presidential ambition.
Several aspirants for the APC Presidential ticket have continued to pursue their ambitions, despite claims that the President has an anointed candidate, which he is yet to unveil.
Pictures emanating from the meeting from the office of the Vice President, indicated that “President Muhammadu Buhari received briefings from Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.”
The Campaign Council however, said the plot has been traced to a cell of smear campaigners, led by an unnamed US-based Nigerian who was formerly a Students Union President at the University of Lagos.
The Council claimed that the same individual is currently a lecturer at the University of Ohio in the USA.
It revealed that the plan was to use fake audio of faceless individuals with fictitious names to cast the Vice President, who is a Christian, as a religious fanatic, who discriminated against staff of other faith while he was Attorney-General & Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State during the tenure of former Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
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“In the fake video, a woman is seen crying and making frantic allegations that she was discriminated against by the then Attorney-General, because she was not allowed to wear the Muslim head cover for women, otherwise known as the hijab, to work.
“As observed by someone who was in the same Ministry at the time Osinbajo served as Attorney-General, no such incident ever occurred and this is just a malicious and wicked attempt to sully the sterling qualities of Prof. Osinbajo because of his Presidential aspirations.”
The Council noted that “as Attorney-General, Osinbajo’s Secretary, a Muslim, Abdul Gafar Bakare had testified before now that the then Lagos AG “did not only encourage me to further my education even at my relatively old age, he personally sponsored my BSc Accounting Program.” He added that the VP also sponsored his foreign travel then.
It would be recalled that similar smear campaigns were unleashed against President Muhammadu Buhari, especially during the 2014-15 Presidential campaigns, when it was alleged that he was virulently anti-Christian. The attempt however met with failure.
Even though a Christian Pastor, “ Osinbajo has always demonstrated himself to be a tolerant Nigerian who believes in the inter-faith harmony and Freedom of Worship as enshrined in the Nigerian 1999 Constitution as amended.
“During his career as a university teacher, he taught Moslems and Christians alike in a convivial atmosphere. He also had excellent working and private relationships with Muslim bosses over the decades, including Judge Bola Ajibola, Former Governor Tinubu and President Muhammadu Buhari. Osinbajo remains a firm believer in Nigeria’s diversity and ardent proponent of Nigerian unity.
For these reasons, the Media Council said it “feels the need to alert the general public to the odious campaign strategy of Osinbajo detractors and urge everyone to ignore same when released to the public.”
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