Junketing wife of the Oyo State governor, Chief (Mrs) Florence Ajimobi, has finally jumped into the net of London police authorities. Her offence: she was found in possession of Pound Sterling and United States Dollars totalling about N104million about two weeks ago.
Mrs Ajimobi was arrested by the Met Police during her 52nd trip
outside Nigeria in the last 17 months that her husband became the chief
executive of the Pace-Setter state. The development came barely a few
months after Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State was arrested also in
London on money laundering charges and was held for about 26 days in the
United Kingdom. Governor Abiola Ajimobi has equally been out of the
country for about 42 times on personal and official trips that have cost
the people of the state fortunes in estacode and denied them the
opportunity of a responsible government during times of sorrow, like the
August 26, 2011 flood disaster that ravaged the state.
The governor’s
wife was held for a few days in London before she telephoned her husband
who immediately flew out to the United Kingdom to save his wife and his
administration from the embarrassment that the arrest could cause.
NEWSLEAK gathered that the governor had to stand surety for his wife
before she was temporarily released the weekend on her arrest. To ensure
that the news does not get to public domain, Governor Ajimobi had to
lie that he was travelling to Taiwan for “an emergency business trip”,
and headed for London to stand surety for his wife. Met police
authorities accept the surety-ship of a sitting high profile government
official in cases of money laundering without which Mrs Ajimobi would
have been declared wanted and Interpol sent after her. When Mrs Ajimobi
returned to Nigeria two Sundays ago, she avoided public gathering, never
honoured any invitation and cancelled all previous appointments.
A community newspaper in London published the news of Mrs Ajimobi’s
arrest with her picture lavishly used by the local daily. NEWSLEAK is
making effort to get the photograph and use same on this website.
According to investigations, Mrs Ajimobi is literally the human bank in
charge of funds illegally deducted from the 33 local government councils
in the state as well as the N110million security monthly security vote
of her husband.
Rumours that Mrs Ajimobi is the courier for public funds running into
billions of Naira allegedly stolen so far by the Action Congress of
Nigeria-led government in the last 17months were reinforced by the
several contracts awarded to Mrs Ajimobi, including the poorly executed
beautification project given to her for N1billion of taxpayers’ money.
In addition, she has appropriated the State Action Committee on AIDS
(SACA), which was hitherto under the purview of the Ministry of Health
to her office and through this, she is sitting upon the
$15million-Dollar World Bank funds released early this year for the
control of AIDS in the state. To wriggle out of money laundering and
sundry charges against Mrs Ajimobi, her husband has engaged the service
of three Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) led by Chief Wole
Olanipekun.
Following the expiration of the week-long bail granted Mrs Ajimobi to
prepare her legal team as the case will be charged t court soon, she
left the country for London early on Sunday, October 28 (that is
yesterday). Governor Ajimobi, it was scoped, has been running from
pillar to post for face-saving strategies against the damning incident.
He was said to have expressed determination to pay any price quoted by
anyone that could be of help in preventing the scandal from becoming
public knowledge as well as getting the “greedy wife” off the hook. The
governor, NEWSLEAK is told, will be travelling out of the country this
week to stand by her wife. It was also gathered that the senior lawyers
are on their way out of the country for the legal fireworks in defence
of Mrs Ajimobi.
Source: Newsleak-ng.com
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