The Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, Laolu Akande, has said that his principal has become a target of smear campaign recently because of ‘his rising profile’.
Akande stated this during an Instagram Live chat with the publisher of Ovation Magazine, Dele Momodu, on Monday night.
He noted that some people with “unscrupulous idea” and “despicable agenda” are jealous of the exalted position occupied by Osinbajo as Nigeria’s number two citizen.
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Akande, however, stressed that the vice president is focused on governance and will not be distracted by false reports attempting to tarnish his image, adding that they’re “ridiculous and incredible.”
“It is ridiculous and incredible some of the types of stories that are out there. What I have found out is that being the vice-president and being a very active vice-president that understands how to connect with the people, that rising profile itself, in a political atmosphere that is extremely murky, I think those who have all kinds of unscrupulous ideas, people with despicable agenda have reasons to try to smear the person that is holding that office.
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“Like I said, because of the position that he holds, next to the President and because of all the kinds of imaginations that people have to think about him, I think, up to a point, he has become a kind of a political target,” Akande said.
Osinbajo was recently accused by a blogger, Jackson Ude, of collecting N4bn from the suspended acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu.
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Ude also claimed the vice-president’s daughter, Kiki, owned an N800m property in Abuja.
The Osinbajo and his daughter had debunked the allegations. The vice-president even wrote the Inspector-General to conduct an investigation into the allegation.
The New Diplomat had reported how Mr Musa Adams, Kiki, Osinbajo’s landlord, had faulted Jackson Ude’s claim saying, “he never sold his property” to the vice-president’s daughter.
