The General Overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly, Lagos, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has said that he never pleaded with President Muhammadu Buhari on behalf of the embattled Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, during their closed door meeting on Friday.
Bakare said that although he and Adeosun met at the corridor in the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Friday, he alone went into a closed door meeting with Buhari to thank him for sending a powerful delegation to his late mother’s funeral ceremony, while the minister went a different direction to see someone else.
The media (excluding The Point) had on Friday been awash with reports that Bakare had gone along with Adeosun to plead with President Buhari over the minister’s alleged involvement in the forgery of an NYSC exemption certificate.
But the cleric said in a message sent to The Point that it was wrong for anyone to misconstrue his private visit to Buhari at the Villa as one made for the purpose of begging the President on behalf of the minister.
He described the reports by some online and print media that he went into Buhari’s office with Adeosun to plead on her behalf as “erroneous and false.”
According to Bakare, “The story published by some social and print media today is both cheap and sensational journalism. Hon. Minister Kemi Adeosun and I arrived at the Villa at different times. We met at the corridor. She went on to see someone else in the Villa and I went into a closed door meeting with PMB alone to thank him for sending a powerful delegation to my mother’s homegoing celebrations. This is the truth.
“The impression being created is as if she ran to me to speak to the President on her behalf. This impression is erroneous and false. I will appreciate that my side of the story is also published.”
