AKANDE: How Pantami Saved Femi Adesina From Sack

But for the last-minute intervention of Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Pantami, President Muhammadu Buhari’s senior media aide, Femi Adesina, would have been sacked over his alleged role in what was seen as an embarrassing involvement of the President in Bisi Akande’s recent book launch in Lagos.

 

Akande’s autobiography, ‘’My Participations,’’ had claimed that Buhari had promised former Lagos State Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu the vice presidential slot in the 2015 election but reneged on his pledge by picking his current VP, Yemi Osinbajo.

Prime Business Africa authoritatively gathered that the President, upon his return from the Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit in Istanbul early in the week, indeed, asked Mr Adesina who was said to have reviewed the Akande’s autobiography to quit his job because he failed  to adequately inform him about Akande’s controversial claim in the memoirs before he (President Buhari) committed to attending the book launch in Lagos.

It was also gathered that it took the last-minute intervention of Minister Pantami, who is believed to be very close to the President for the President to soft-pedal.

To quickly douse tension and possibly resolve the issues raised by Bisi Akande’s book launch, Tinubu and the author, Akande, had rushed to Abuja early in the week to meet with President Buhari who just returned from the Turkey summit. They were, however, denied access and, instead, asked to ‘come back next week’.

Feelers from the seat of power indicate that the President felt embarrassed that he got physically  involved  with the  launch of  Akande’s book which content was later found to be in disparity with what the Presidency think was what truly happened in 2015 shortly before Buhari took the reins of power. Adesina was to be shown the way out of the Presidency by angry Buhari because, as Prime Business Africa learnt, he reviewed the book before the president’s speech was written.

 

Akande, Prime Business Africa learnt, had alongside the President’s invitation letter, sent  an advance copy of the book which was given to Adesina to review before the President could commit to attending the book launch. Adesina was said to have reviewed the book as directed but unfortunately failed to flag the Akande’s controversial claim on the vice presidential ticket saga in 2015. The Presidency has continued to deny this claim by Akande.

 

But Buhari’s attendance and the speech he delivered at the event appeared to have made him complicit in whatever turned out to be the actual content of Akande’s book.

It was learnt that the President was already on his way to Turkey after attending the December 9 launch of Akande’s ‘’My Participations’’ and a made-in Nigeria Naval defence ship, NNS Oji and other vital military assets when media reviews and excerpts from the book began to throw up some of the disagreeable claims.

Prime Business Africa learnt that, the Presidency, in fact, had a premonition about the launch but still had to attend, because President Buhari had already given his word. Following pressure to boycott the launch, even though Mr President had committed to the Akande’s book event, the Presidency had to quickly structure the Naval ship launch as a more strategic reason for the Lagos visit.

 

But the President still came under serious criticism from the Opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and civil society organisations after the event, even before the controversial claim about his promise to Bola Tinubu, who is currently looking to take a shot at the presidency in 2023.

 

Impeccable sources involved in the entire scheme of things, informed Prime Business Africa that  following President Buhari’s return from Turkey on Sunday, Tinubu and Akande  were willing to meet with the president with a view to resolving all the issues but were not permitted to see him. ‘’The President could not see them. They were told to come back next week,’’ an authoritative source in Abuja told Prime Business Africa.