President Buhari and Vice-President Osinbajo sharing a light moment at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. The ruling party maintains that there is no rift between the two /Photo: Nigerian Presidency

APC denies feud between President Buhari and Vice-President Osinbajo

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has denied reports that there is a rift between President Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

For many weeks now, Nigerians have been inundated with reports that the president and his deputy are at logger heads. These speculations have been fueled by some actions taken within the presidency in recent times.

For example, a new body replacing the economic management team led by Vice-President Osinbajo was appointed by Buhari on 16 September. The decision to set up the Economic Advisory Council (EAC), consisting of experts, was a direct reaction to critics of the government who said the Osinbajo-chaired team lacked expertise which was why it had not been able to positively turn around the country’s economy. Many analysts interpret the decision of the president as an indication of a rift between him and the vice president, who however is the still head of the National Economic Council, according to the constitution.

The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Lanre Issa-Onilu,  while addressing a press conference on Thursday in Abuja, said the reports of a feud between Buhari and Osinbajo were nothing but the figment of the imagination of members of the opposition party, PDP. He said the ruling party would rather talk on “issues of governance” than to react to “fallacies”.

The APC spokesman said President Buhari and Professor Osinbajo contrary to insinuations have a good working relationship.

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While stressing that the party was not responsible for the recent 2023 campaign posters in some parts of the country, Issa-Onilu said the only focus of the party now was governance.

“We have important issues of governance than to continue to respond to fallacies. How do you determine a crack? The vice president had been sent out to represent the president at an international event, after, PDP saw a crack; the vice president presided over the FEC meeting just on Wednesday. Is that part of the PDP’s crack? Let us stop this joke. We know we have challenges in this country, let us face these challenges,” Issa-Onilu said.

Kola Tella

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