The Presidency has dismissed as laughable the attempt by Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State to link President Muhammadu Buhari’s wife, Aisha, to US Congressman William Jefferson’s bribery scandal, for which the American lawmaker was convicted in 2009.
Reacting to Fayose’s allegations in a press statement, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said ordinarily the Presidency would have ignored Fayose because he is a man “childishly obsessed with the desire to grab the headlines and insulting people at will because of his incurably boorish instincts”.
Shehu explained however that the Presidency chose to respond on this occasion for the sake of innocent Nigerians who might be misled by Fayose’s shameless and blatant distortion of facts.
He said ignoring Fayose carries the risk of giving traction and credibility to outright and brazen falsehoods inconsistent with the status of anybody that calls himself a governor or leader.
According to Shehu, Mrs Buhari had no direct, indirect or the remotest connection with William Jefferson’s corruption scandal in the United States.
He challenged Fayose to tell Nigerians if the so-called Aisha whose pictures he proudly, but ignorantly shared, was the same Aisha married to President Muhammadu Buhari, or if the Aisha had any relationship by blood or any relationship in whatever form, with President Buhari’s wife.
Shehu also challenged Fayose to produce evidence from the records of investigation and subsequent trial of Jefferson to prove that Mrs Buhari was in anyway linked to that scandal.
He explained that common names alone are not enough to automatically link innocent people to crimes or scandals, especially in an era of identity thieves.
He further challenged Fayose to show proof of when and where Aisha Buhari was invited for interrogation in connection with Jefferson’s bribery scandal, let alone indicted for a crime locally or abroad.
According to the presidential media aide, free speech does not entitle Fayose to falsely accuse innocent people of crimes they knew nothing about.
He warned Fayose that the President’s wife is entitled to protect her reputation from being recklessly maligned, adding that political opposition is not a licence to attack people’s reputation brazenly without legal consequences.
