Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has denied knowledge of a memo purportedly written by him, indicating his intention to leave the All Progressives Congress (APC).
This is as some top members of the party continue to berate the party’s presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, over the choice of a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
The denial followed a memo allegedly written by the office of the vice-president to President Muhammadu Buhari, seeking the president’s “permission to resign from the APC” which has gone viral over social media.
The choice of a Muslim-Muslim ticket, announced last Sunday by the APC presidential flag bearer, for the 2023 presidential election, has fractured the party across the country, with some of its members resigning their membership in protest.
The two paragraphs memo titled “Permission to Resign From APC” was, however, described as the “handiwork of Osinbajo’s enemies” by his media aide, Laolu Akande, on Thursday, when he spoke with BusinessDay, in Abuja.
Akande described the memo as “fake”, adding that “it neither emanated from the Osinbajo directly nor any of his aides.
According to the memo, Osinbajo was said to have claimed that he was under “pressure from family members” to resign from the party.
Read also: The danger in Tinubu’s muslim-muslim ticket
“As a father and a great mentor, I would not be where I am today, regrettably, I write to seek your permission to resign my membership of the All Progressives Congress (APC). However, if the timing of this plan is not convenient, or acceptable to your Excellency, I will surely abide by your decision and advice, which I will consider to be the final” (sic).
But speaking with BusinessDay, Akande picked holes in the said memo, pointing out several grammatical errors contained in it, which he said did not reflect the tradition of the vice-president’s office.
“These errors show clearly that this is fake and therefore, could not have been written from this office. We appeal to members of the public to disregard it”
“As far as we are concerned, the vice-president remains a member of the APC” he said.
Recall that the vice-president, himself a Christian, had contested the presidential primaries of the party against Bola Tinubu in June and lost.
The Buhari administration came to power in 2015, with a Muslim president and Christian vice-president to balance Nigeria’s religious diversity.
The vice-president is, however, yet to make any official statement on the Muslim-Muslim ticket as announced by Tinubu, under whom he served as the attorney-general and commissioner for justice in Lagos State.
