The Presidency has denied the stories in some section of the media, that Pastor Tunde Bakare of Latter Rain Assembly and Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, met together with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House, Abuja on Friday.
In a statement he issued on Friday night, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, said the stories are far from the truth.
He stated that on arrival at the State House after the Juma’at prayer, Pastor Bakare and Adeosun had walked together moving towards the President’s office.
But the statement said that the Minister was at the Presidential Villa in connection with the Annual General Meeting and 25th Anniversary Celebration of African Export-Import Bank (AFREXIMBANK) holding on Saturday in Abuja, which would be graced by President Buhari.
Adesina said “She ran into Pastor Bakare, who was on a scheduled visit to see the President, and they exchanged pleasantries. The cleric particularly thanked the Minister for finding time to attend his mother’s funeral, which took place in Abeokuta, Ogun State penultimate weekend.”
He also said “Mrs Adeosun had seen President Buhari not fewer than three times earlier in the week, and did not need to meet with him again on Friday. This statement is to put events in proper perspective, and dispel all conjectures and fictive reporting.”
The embattled minister was caught up in a controversy recently over a recent report which claimed that she failed to participate in the compulsory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
The report also alleged Adeosun did not only fail to take part in the one-year scheme but also supposedly obtained a fake exemption certificate.
Reacting to the report in a statement on Monday, the NYSC, through its spokesperson Adeyemi Adenike confirmed that the minister did apply for an exemption certificate.
It further vowed to launch an investigation into the origin of the purported exemption certificate in question.
Two days later, a former NYSC Director of Mobilisation, Mr Anthony Ani, said the agency could not have made a mistake to issue the purported certificate in question.
“If those documents were the documents claimed to have been submitted, I want to emphatically say that no! they wouldn’t have emanated from the NYSC,” Ani had said in an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday.
