By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
Eruptions from the now discredited report of Mrs. Florence Ajimobi’s arrest on money laundering charges and 52 foreign trips throw up a debate on moral rectitude of public office holders.

If the tale about the alleged arrest in London, of the wife of the Oyo State governor, Mrs. Florence Ajimobi was meant to rubbish her, it was apparently so amateurishly conceived.

Backed with some of the best hands in media relations, Mrs. Ajimobi has been able to in a way show that the story was the handiwork of the political detractors of her husband, Governor Abiola Ajimobi.

Florence Ajimobi

“The rumour is not going to stop me; it has only made me to be stronger and be more careful,” the Oyo First Lady said last Wednesday as she returned to the country from London, a day after the story of her alleged arrest was published in a local newspaper.

The report had also noted, albeit so sensationally, that the Oyo First Lady had traveled abroad 52 times since her husband became governor penultimate May.

Indeed, once the alleged arrest was published, the first response of Governor Ajimobi’s media team was a press statement that the governor had instituted a libel action against the newspaper that published the story. Given the experience of Dr. Festus Adedayo in the hullabaloo that marked the Ebeano Phenomenon, it was believed by some in the Lagos press that the statement was articulated to deter further publication of the story.

Governor Ajimobi who undoubtedly would have been scandalised by the report spared little niceties when he was challenged by newsmen on the issue during the meeting of the National Economic Council, NEC in Abuja last Wednesday.

He was categorical in asserting the culpability of three unnamed political adversaries as the brains behind the allegedly fictitious story.

“We know those behind it. In fact, they are political jobbers, who lost out in the last election. Three of them are from the PDP. They have never achieved anything in their lives. They are coming back with the old system of maligning people.”

Asserting that it was beneath him and his family to be so scandalized, he added: “We have built our reputation over the years. I did not come from nowhere. I worked with the oil industry. I did not work with Wero Enterprises; I worked with National Oil and Shell. I was the Managing Director of National Oil and the MD of Shell STSL in Togo. I have made my name.”

“When you are doing well as a politician, some mischief makers, who want to pull you down, would concoct stories like this particular one.”

The governor, however, did not name those he claimed were the brains behind the story.

His immediate predecessor in office and PDP leader in the state, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala immediately disputed him.

“The truth of the matter is that the ACN leadership is just making baseless allegations against the PDP over the money laundering issue.

“I want Governor Ajimobi to know that those behind the rumour are not true and authentic members of the PDP. Rather, they are the ones who went to the ACN to support him when he was contesting the governorship election in 2011.

“Those making the insinuation are not the real PDP members, but those who betrayed the party by supporting ACN during the election.

“Ajimobi should look inward and beam his searchlight on those people who supported him during the election.

“I am sure that he knows them. Those behind the allegation of money laundering are the PDP members who donated some people to Ajimobi’s cabinet.

“The governor should not allow his party to drag him into an unnecessary war with the PDP. Our party consists of men and women of integrity who will never engage in baseless allegations.

“We have nothing to gain by witch-hunting or spreading rumour against the governor. Ajimobi should critically look inward to know those who are behind the insinuations,” he said.

Mrs. Ajimobi’s explanation of the purpose of her visit to London was, however, to open another dimension to the unfolding story.

“I only travelled last Sunday to London to accompany my child, who returned to secondary school. I have a 14- year old daughter who has been in England since 2007 and every parent who has children over there knows the system; she is still in secondary school; and you have to go and pick them up from school; there are no exemptions that they are international students, you cannot say because my husband is a politician, because I am married to a politician, I should shelve my responsibility as a mother; I have to manage my home, take care of my children and play the role of a good mother, a responsible mother, a committed mother in addition to my responsibilities as wife of a politician.”

Her explanation of the purpose of her visit was something that immediately lured the opposition PDP in Oyo State to enter the fray.

“As much as we are not in a position to join issues with Mrs. Ajimobi on the alleged money laundering charges as reported by a local newspaper using an online publication as its source, we are constrained to ask some fundamental questions, especially from her own defence on arrival,” the PDP publicity secretary for the state, Mr. Lukman Agboluaje said in a statement.

“We are aware of the free education policy of the present administration in the state and our concern is the inability of the state’s first couple to allow their kid daughter enjoy the free education being dished out to the populace rather than for the First Lady to incessantly visit her daughter every three weeks in a UK secondary school.”

Remarkably, Mrs. Ajimobi is undoubtedly not the only First Lady of a state training her children abroad. Even in some cases the governors do not make any pretence about the fact that they have indeed virtually relocated their wives and children out of the country.

Besides schooling, many senior officials of the government are also in the habit of attending to their medical needs abroad. The slightest feeling of malaria immediately gives reason for many Nigerian public officials to go abroad to seek treatment and thereby squandering the country’s foreign reserves.

Rounding up on the events of the last week, Mrs. Ajimobi was to note the cost on her reputation.

“Indeed, I see it as a price I have to pay for being the wife of a politician.” It is indeed, a costly price.