Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Babachir Lawal, has claimed that President Bola Tinubu personally financed the vice-presidential campaign of former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo during the 2015 general election and spent more than N2 billion to hire political consultants linked to former United States President Barack Obama.
Lawal made the claims during an interview with Symfoni TV released on Saturday while recounting Tinubu’s contributions to the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential campaign that brought late former President Muhammadu Buhari to power.
According to him, Tinubu mobilised substantial funds for the campaign and separately financed Osinbajo’s campaign activities because they operated somewhat independently of the main Buhari campaign.
“Through him (Tinubu), we were able to raise sufficient funds to do the campaign.
“Not only did he do that, Osibanjo’s portion of the campaign, he funded it, hired a chair to funded the trip because our Osibanjo’s campaign was a little bit broken away from the main campaign.
“Osibanjo on his own was a pastor, his ethnic nationalities and Christians had some doubts about Buhari. He was on that side.
“He wasn’t on our own area, and he was just doing sort of semi-independent of the main campaign. Tinubu was funding it,” Lawal said.
The former SGF further alleged that Tinubu engaged political consultants from the United States, whom he described as associates of former President Obama, to strengthen the APC’s campaign strategy.
“Then I know of another place when he hired some consultants for us from the US, who were doing quite a lot of professional work.
“I don’t know their names. I just know that they were Obama people, and they came and they transformed our campaign, and I knew that the money he paid them was in excess of two billion naira equivalent of dollars,” he said.
Lawal also claimed that Tinubu personally bore the cost of major campaign expenditures instead of drawing from the campaign’s central funds.
“And there’s another thing about Bola Tinubu: if there’s a need for an expenditure, no matter how massive, he doesn’t come to the campaign purse; he spends from his own purse.
“All these things I told you. Some people don’t know this, but I was there, and I knew this. And he did all these things,” he added.
