The wife of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has become embroiled in a spat with an opposition governor over corruption allegations.
The spat began after the governor of Nigeria’s Ekiti state, Peter Ayodele Fayose, accused Aisha Buhari of involvement in a bribery scandal involving former U.S. Congressman William J. Jefferson. In 2009, Jefferson was found guilty of 11 counts of corruption and was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment. The court found that he took around $500,000 in bribes and an account in the name of Aisha Buhari in Nigeria was cited in the sentencing memorandum as one of the accounts from which transfers to Jefferson were made.
The Nigerian presidency had dismissed Fayose’s allegations, with presidential spokesman Garba Shehu characterizing them as those of a man “childishly obsessed with the desire to grab the headlines and insulting people at will because of his incurably boorish instincts.” Shehu said that the president’s wife had no connection to the Jefferson case and challenged Fayose to provide evidence to the contrary.
The former head of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Lamorde, told Nigeria’s Premium Timesthat the Aisha Buhari cited in the memorandum is not the same woman as the current president’s wife. Fayose made the allegations after the EFCC froze one of his personal accounts.
A tweet was sent from Aisha Buhari’s verified Twitter account on Tuesday evening apparently responding to Fayose’s allegations, Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper reported . “Enough is enough Fayose. A mad dog that isn’t chained. I refuse to keep quiet,” the tweet said. It was subsequently deleted and the Nigerian government has not made any public statement on the affair nor confirmed whether the tweet was sent by the First Lady.
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