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 has
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 Times that 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.
Fayose is a member of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP),
which was ousted from government when Buhari defeated former President
Goodluck Jonathan in an election in March 2015. The PDP has accused the
Buhari administration of focusing its anti-corruption crackdown on
members of the opposition and not dealing with allegations of graft
within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Aisha Buhari
married the now-president in 1989 and the couple have five children. The
First Lady oversees the Future Assured initiative, which aims to reduce
the country’s maternal and infant mortality rates.
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