Following some media reports last week
which accused the wife of the president, Dame Patience Jonathan of
collecting the sum of N3billion from the Niger Delta Development
Commission in order to facilitate the agency’s 2015 Budget, the first
lady has issued a rebuttal.
In the report, Mrs. Jonathan was accused
of collaborating with a former Minister of State for Education, Chief
Nyesom Wike, in a number of schemes that enabled them loot the resources
of the NDDC.
However Patience Jonathan who spoke
through her media aide, Ayo Adewuyi, said that the report was fabricated
and was designed to mislead unsuspecting members of the public and
recruit them into their hate campaign against her. He added that the
step was meant to again portray her as an overbearing and intrusive
woman against her well known passion for peace and advancement of the
cause of women and children in Nigeria.
The statement read, “Nigerians are very conversant with the workings of the National Assembly regarding passage of Budgets.
“Parliamentary process requires that the
Appropriation Bill goes through first reading, second reading and third
reading and subsequent harmonisation by the two chambers.
“One then wonders at which level of this
process the First Lady influenced the passage of NDDC Budget that
warranted her being paid N3billion for the alleged ‘Consultancy.’
“Therefore, it will be impossible for
one single person to influence its passage or is the author trying to
indict our lawmakers?
“The report is therefore, to say the
least, dubious, diversionary, unfair, unkind, and totally unacceptable.
Dame Patience Jonathan did no such thing.”
On alleged N3bn NDDC bribe: Patience Jonathan laments that haters just want to make her look bad
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Oleh
healthandwealth
