*Challenges him to show proof linking Buhari’s wife

*Aisha Buhari in Jefferson bribery scandal not President’s wife —Lamorde

By Levinus Nwabughiogu & Bartholomew, with agency reports

ABUJA—The Presidency has said that Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State acted so infantile by linking President Buhari’s wife, Aisha, to U.S. Congressman, William Jefferson’s bribery scandal for which the American lawmaker was convicted in 2009.

This came as former chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, said yesterday that the Aisha Buhari named in the bribery scandal involving a U.S. congressman, Williams Jefferson, in the Halliburton scandal was not the President’s wife.

Aisha Buhari

The Presidency while dismissing the issue, also described it as laughable and desperate act to attract media attention.

Garba Shehu reacts
Reacting to Fayose’s allegations in a press statement, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam 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.”

Malam Garba 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 carried the “risk of giving traction and credibility to outright and brazen falsehoods inconsistent with the status of anybody that called himself a Governor or leader.”

According to Shehu, Aisha had “no direct, indirect or the remotest connection with William Jefferson’s corruption scandal in the United States.”

Challenges Fayose
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 of his idle imagination 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 Buhari’s wife, Aisha, 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 when and where Aisha Buhari was invited for interrogation in connection with Congressman William Jefferson’s bribery scandal, let alone indicted for a crime locally or abroad.”

According to the Presidential media aide, “free speech does not entitle Governor Fayose to falsely accuse innocent people of crimes they knew nothing about.”

He warned Fayose that Aisha Buhari was “entitled to protect her reputation from being recklessly maligned, adding that political opposition was not a license to attack people’s reputation brazenly without legal consequences.

Lamorde clarifies
Meanwhile, former chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, said yesterday that the Aisha Buhari named in the bribery scandal involving a U.S. Congressman, Williams Jefferson, in the Halliburton scandal was not the President’s wife.

Lamorde, who disclosed this in an interview with online platform, Premium Times, at National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, Kuru, Jos, where he is currently on a course, said he was fully involved in the investigation as EFCC director of operations at the time to know that President Buhari’s wife, Aisha, was not the person involved in the scandal.

He said: “I can tell you authoritatively that the Aisha Buhari named in that case is not President Buhari’s wife. It is another Aisha Buhari entirely.

“I was the director of operations at the EFCC at the time, so I know about the case very well. I can tell you that it is not her (President Buhari’s wife). That much we established.

“It is unfair to link the President’s wife with that case. “She was definitely not the one involved, and Fayose and other Nigerians should know this.”

Premium Times contacted him for clarification, following claims by Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, on Monday, that the Aisha Buhari mentioned in court documents to have transferred $170,000 to the convicted American politician was President Buhari’s wife.