TheCable

Tunde Bakare, senior pastor of the Latter Rain Assembly, Lagos, says he and Kemi Adeosun, minister of finance, were at the villa for different reasons.

Addressing reporters on his way out of the presidential villa after over an hour with President Muhmmadu Buhari, Bakare said he did not go to Buhari on Adeosun’s behalf, explaining that they met at the entrance of the villa.

“Our visit was not related. We met at the entrance of the villa,” he told reporters before leaving.

While the pastor left around 4pm, Adeosun departed the villa 35 minutes later.

They both arrived at 2:30pm

Although she responded to greetings, Adeosun did not entertain questions from reporters.

However, moments after he left the villa Bakare issued a statement to make further clarifications.

“The story published by some social and print media today is both cheap & sensational journalism. Hon. Min. Kemi Adeosun & I arrived at the Villa at different times,” he said.

“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 Home-going Celebration. 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.”

The minister has been in the news over alleged forgery of the exemption certificate of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

Premium Times had reported that Adeosun submitted a forged NYSC exemption certificate for her ministerial screening.

The newspaper said she is not eligible for an exemption certificate, having graduated at the age of 22 and failing to present herself for the mandatory one-year programme before she clocked 30 years.