Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has responded to claims by the Director General of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, Doyin Okupe, that Senate President Bukola Saraki masterminded his appointment as a minister.
Mr Okupe, a former presidential spokesperson, had said in a statement on Sunday that Mohammed owed his ministerial appointment to S
However, in a statement on Monday by Segun Adeyemi, spokesperson to Mohammed, the minister said he owed his appointment to President Muhammadu Buhari alone.
“The entire statement by Dr. Okupe is nothing but fiction writing, for which he deserves a hall of infamy award (in the fiction writing segment). Not one of the claims he made in his statement is true.
“For the record, Alhaji Lai Mohammed owes his appointment as Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to President Muhammadu Buhari and no one else. It is therefore laughable that anyone will seek to take credit for that appointment.
“We challenge Dr. Okupe, who concocted the story in question, to make available to Nigerians any evidence he may have to support his assertion that the President sought the permission of Dr. Saraki to appoint Alhaji Mohammed as Minister.
“We understand that Dr. Okupe’s cheap attempt at mud-throwing is nothing but a proxy fight, rooted deeply in the politics of Kwara State.
“We are aware that Dr. Okupe’s boss is feeling the heat emanating from the ‘O To Ge’ (enough is enough) movement in Kwara, and that even the strongest of men will become disoriented and disillusioned at losing the support of a people who once venerated them to high heavens.
“But that is a self-inflicted wound for which Okupe’s boss, an acclaimed slave master, has no one but himself to blame,” the statement read.
