Funds used to purchase property traceable to River, minister’s aide insists

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Bode George, has dismissed allegations by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, that his Maitama residence in Abuja was funded with Rivers State money.

He described the claim as the ‘outburst of a man who needs urgent psychiatric attention.’ Wike had, during a media chat in Abuja on Tuesday, described George as the “father of corruption” and challenged him to explain the source of funds used to acquire the property.

Reacting on TVC News on Wednesday night, George denied the allegation and threatened to sue Wike. He said he did not build the house but bought it from its original owner, who, he said, was a retired civil servant.

“What has he got to do with the price of milk? It’s my house. The agent got it for me.

“And the owner of the house was also a civil servant, retired. So, what has he got to do with Rivers State? Am I from Rivers State? Is Rivers State a bank?” George asked.

The PDP Board of Trustees member said it was beneath him to respond to Wike, whom he said was about the same age as his first child.

He, however, went ahead to fault the minister’s conduct, describing him as immature and unfit to hold office without proper guidance.

George said: “I said to myself that that young man needs to be immediately taken to the psychiatric hospital. My house in Abuja was bought with funds from Rivers? How?

“I wasn’t the only one he was abusing. First of all, it’s an infra dig for me to respond to a child who is just about the same age as my first child,” George said.

George alleged that Wike’s estrangement from his own father should disqualify him from lecturing others on corruption.

“In Africa, if your biological father disowns you publicly, you know what that means. And you want me to respond to him?

I’m so sorry, because I have met his family,

George added that he would pursue legal action against the minister and called for his removal from public office.

“I’m going to sue him for all the shenanigans, the thoughtlessness. And I’m sure he was high on something. It’s high time this guy in the villa should move away from him. He’s unadvised. You don’t need him,” he said.

Asked whether he could still work with Wike if the survival of the PDP demanded it, George said the minister had gone past redemption.

HOWEVER, the Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media to the FCT minister,   Lere Olayinka, has insisted that Bode George’s Abuja property was acquired with funds traced to Rivers State.

Olayinka, in a statement yesterday, said the minister stood by his earlier claim on the matter, stressing that the issue was never about who sold the property or the agent involved, but the source of the money used to acquire it.

“Wike was clear. He said Bode George’s Abuja house was acquired with funds from Rivers State, and he stands by this.

George said he bought the property from a private owner through an agent. That is not the issue. Wike’s statement was never about who the property was purchased from or through”.

Rather, what he said was that the money with which the property was acquired came from Rivers State, and this is the question Bode George must answer,” Olayinka said.

Olayinka’s statement was a response to recent media appearances by the former military governor whom he accused of lacking the moral standing to lecture Nigerians on corruption.

He told George to borrow some maturity from those he served with as military governor of the old Ondo State 38 years ago, urging him to rest rather than continue what he called an embarrassment to himself and the Yoruba race.