Family Scandal-TheNEWS

The Obasanjo family  produces a  blockbuster sequel to the contract scandal involving Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, as Gbenga, second son of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, accuses his father of gross sexual misconduct

 BAMIDELE JOHNSON

Having spent a greater part of his life in important public positions, Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former president, is familiar with scandals. In many of these, he starred or co-starred, injuring his reputation in a series of political and personal misdemeanours. Few weeks after he left office, news reports linked his paternal roots to  Obi Joseph Okwudili Onyejekwe, a former policeman who became the natural ruler of Onitsha in Anambra State between 1962 and 1970.   Other reports accused him of abusing his office to favour cronies and himself and of selling privatised government assets cheap and in questionable circumstances.  But none of the scandals had the toxicity of the latest one: the allegation by  Gbenga,  Obasanjo’s second son, that his father had sexual relations with his wife, Mojisola.
 The lethal allegation is the highlight of an affidavit filed at the Lagos State High Court, Ikeja Division, in which Gbenga is requesting to dissolve his marriage to Mojisola. Gbenga’s affidavit was a response to a cross-petition filed by Mojisola, who was responding to her husband’s petition (ID/289/HD/05) for dissolution of the marriage on account of her alleged desertion from home. Also blistered by Gbenga’s disclosures is Otunba Alex Onabanjo, Mojisola’s father, whom the former president’s son accused of sleeping with his own daughter, a taboo in any civilised culture.
In the affidavit, signed by his lawyer, Emankhu Addeh, Gbenga claimed that his wife confessed to have been sexually violated by her father, Otunba Onabanjo. His attempt to end the alleged incestuous relationship, Gbenga claimed, resulted in friction between him and his father in-law. In an interview with TheNEWS in 2006, Gbenga spoke dismissively about his father in-law. “I can’t even stay in the same room with my father in-law,” he told his interviewer.
But the greater number of Gbenga’s poisoned darts were shot at his father, whom Gbenga alleged slept with Mojisola and compensated her with oil contracts with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, via her company, Bowen & Brown. “The petitioner (Gbenga) avers that the respondent (Mojisola) also got rewarded for her adulterous acts with several oil contracts with the NNPC from his father, General Olusegun Obasanjo, amongst which was the NNPC Consultancy training in supply chain management and project management awarded to her company, Bowen and Brown,” the affidavit read in part.
 Gbenga also accused his wife of having sexual relations with one Mr. Olumide Ogunlesi while married to him. The alleged dalliances, he said, have traumatised him. And on account of that, he wants the court to order a DNA test to ascertain the true father of the two children produced during the marriage. “The petitioner avers that it is now necessary for a court-ordered DNA test to be carried out on himself, Otunba Alex Onabanjo and General Olusegun Obasanjo by a competent independent medical laboratory chosen by the court, in order to ascertain the actual paternity of the children of the marriage, as continued uncertainty about their actual paternity is making his life a misery,” the affidavit read.
Gbenga, a medical doctor and one of Obasanjo’s sons from Oluremi, his first wife, married Mojisola in Lagos on 29 April 2000 at a lavish ceremony. By 2004, the union was devoid of bliss, forcing them to separate. Things further degenerated, prompting Gbenga to seek a divorce.
On 28 December 2005, Gbenga sought the dissolution of the union. In a suit filed at the Ikeja High Court, Gbenga cited incompatibility, Mojisola’s poor cooking skills, untidiness and her father’s frequent meddling in the couple’s affair as reasons for seeking divorce. At the time, however, incest and adultery were not included. But 15 days later, a notice of discontinuance was filed on Gbenga’s orders, a development attributed to pressure by the former president. Sources close to the estranged couple, however, list wife battering and infidelity on Gbenga’s part as major causes of friction in the marriage.
 On account of the frequent beating, Mojisola’s father intervened regularly, to Gbenga’s displeasure. Mojisola’s complaints, sources revealed, were heavy on her husband’s closeness to a female domestic servant named Ola, who was brought to the home by Gbenga’s mother. There is yet no response from Obasanjo, but a group loyal to him, the Obasanjo Solidarity Forum, OSF, has warned Nigerians against condemning the former president and Gbenga’s father in-law. In a statement signed by its South-West Coordinator, Alhaji Lekan Yusuff, the group said the accuser needs to prove his allegation first.
Though Mojisola’s response was not as racy as Gbenga’s, it brimmed with delicious details of its own, which are hissing like animal fat in fire. In her cross-petition, she alleged that Gbenga got contracts from the NNPC and Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, while his father was in office. Mojisola is demanding a hefty compensation because of the financial status of the husband, whom she also alleged is violent. Under “Particulars of Income of the Petitioner,” Mojisola claimed that Gbenga makes an average annual income of N500 million. “The Petitioner (Gbenga) earns from commissions paid to him as an agent to a construction company with various construction projects, which was recently awarded an N11 billion construction contract,” the cross-petition read in part. Again, Mojisola alleged that her husband owns substantial shares in Linetrale Trading Company Ltd, a concern engaged in importing, selling, supplying and marketing of petroleum products, as well as collecting oil allocations from the NNPC.
According to her, Gbenga receives payments from Health Aids Support Services, an HIV consulting firm currently handling a project for MTN and some state governments. Other income streams, alleged Mojisola, include commission for brokering different deals on behalf of foreign companies, commission for the supply of 800 vehicles to the government of Ogun State, substantial investment in oil blocs and huge investment in Glo Oil Ltd. and Hyster Investments Ltd.  Mojisola claimed Gbenga could earn such stupendous income because he is a “medical doctor with a Masters in Public Health and a Ph.D from Johns Hopkins University, USA.”  More important, said Mojisola, her husband exploited the advantage of his father’s position, which provided him access to eminent world political leaders, business personalities, state governors, commissioners and top players in the country’s public and private sectors.
Her husband, she alleged, owns an intimidating property portfolio that includes “choice plots in Maitama, Abuja; Banana Island, Ikoyi, Lagos; Lekki Phase 1, Lagos; Abeokuta, and a house in GRA Ikeja, Lagos. Gbenga also owns Peugeot 607, Land Cruiser Jeep 2006 model and a Kia Opirus among other automobiles. Mojisola claimed she got to know of her husband’s considerable income through discussions between them while they lived together.
As “ancillary relief,” therefore, Mojisola is asking the court for a permanent order directing Gbenga to pay a lump sum of N54 million for her upkeep and that of the two children of the marriage, Boluwatife and Wuraola, till they become adults. She is also requesting the court to compel Gbenga to give her and the children two of his cars as well as a driver to be paid by him. Mojisola also wants their house at 8 Ladipo Bateye Street, GRA Ikeja, or that the court should order Gbenga to provide N50million for the purchase of a house of similar standard. In addition, she is seeking an order directing Gbenga to make adequate provision for the children’s security, a monthly payment of N300,000 for the period of 15 years or till the children attain adulthood, a lump sum of £360,000 or its naira equivalent and $400,000 or its naira equivalent for children’s education. The sum of £360,000, she explained, would be for school fees over a six-year period for the two children at a secondary school in Switzerland, while $400,000 would be the cost of a four-year degree programme in an American University.
Gbenga’s lurid disclosures is the second time in as many months that the Obasanjo family name has been sullied. Late last month, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, Gbenga’s elder sister, was the subject of an apparent contract scandal currently under probe by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. In December 2005, Iyabo, then  Commissioner for Health in Ogun State, in league with Prince Albert Awofisayo, a businessman, entered into a joint venture agreement with the Austrian firm, M. Schneider GMBH and Co. The Nigerian partners used Akiya Nigeria Limited, a company floated by Iyabo, as the purpose vehicle for the venture, which was for the execution of a set of contracts worth N3.5 billion in the power sector. While signing the forms on behalf of Akiya in Austria, Iyabo was said to have adopted a pseudonym, Mrs. Damilola Akinlawon, a fusion of a sibling’s name and that of her maternal grandmother. Her decision to use a pseudonym drew suspicious glances. It was widely believed that Iyabo, then a serving commissioner, used the pseudonym to circumvent the extant Code of Conduct, which bars government officials from running businesses. Iyabo’s initial reaction was full of bluster, saying that she holds a Ph.D and was not disentitled from engaging in business because her father was the president. But that was quickly amended by her lawyers’ denials via press advertisements. They rejected the suggestion of impersonation and the charge that Iyabo contravened the Code of Conduct by running a business. The lawyers claimed she was in Austria to sign pre-incorporation contract forms as a shareholder of Akiya, on whose behalf Iyabo signed as “IOB.”
But the defence was widely assailed, given that IOB–used in her campaign for the senatorial election–is a condensation of  Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello. Questions were also raised on how Akiya, without a record of performance in the power sector, acquired 10 per cent equity stake in M. Schneider Nigeria Ltd, which was incorporated in Nigeria to enable it win and execute the contracts. Akiya Nigeria Ltd was to receive 10 per cent commission of the contract sum worth N3.5 billion, plus other sweeteners. Things ran smoothly in 2006, as M. Schneider won two contracts, with two others promised. But the bubble soon burst, when the Nigerian partners alleged that the Austrians changed the ownership structure of the joint venture to scheme Akiya out. The Austrians returned the fire by alleging that their Nigerian partners floated a new company to take over the contracts.
 Then came the flexing of political muscle, with which the Nigerian partners ensured that the contracts were cancelled. When the matter went on arbitration in Paris, France, the Nigerian partners pressed for compensation and expenses incurred in the failed contracts. But the Austrians disagreed, arguing, among other issues, that the contracts had been invalidated by Iyabo, who fraudulently signed as Mrs. Damilola Akinlawon. This was dismissed by the arbitrators who upheld the validity of the contracts. But the issue of compensation is still unresolved.
Like Gbenga, Iyabo has had her own marital hell. Her marriage to Akeem Bello, a self-styled US-based financial consultant but widely branded a trickster, packed up a few years ago. Though their divorce has not gone through, bits and pieces of her marital horrors once yielded copies for celebrity magazines. Four years ago, Bello, a native of Ibadan, told some Nigerians in the US that Obasanjo and Iyabo had endorsed him as the candidate for the 2007 presidential election. He also listed God as the prime driver of his bid, for which he urged his listeners to donate $1000 each. Bello also sent e-mail to some of his wife’s friends. Reacting to Akeem’s claims in an e-mail to a friend, Iyabo wrote: “I will ordinarily ignore Mr.Akeem’s ramblings to people, but in the e-mail he sent to you all, he mentioned me and my father. I’m responding so that none of you feel I’m involved in Mr.Akeem’s schemes in any way.” Iyabo then served a hint of what her four-year marriage to him was like. “I was fooled by him and made a big mistake marrying him. He has duped me many times. The grandiose ambition mentioned in his e-mail to you about becoming president of Nigeria is part madness and partly a scheme to dupe you of money,” Iyabo wrote. She added that she was lucky to get out of the marriage alive and with her sanity intact.
Gbenga’s fractured marriage is the third among the former president’s children. The marriage of another elder sister, Busola, to an army officer also crashed. For Obasanjo himself, marriage has been a slippery terrain, having failed serially. Olusegun Obasanjo In The Eyes Of Time, a biography by Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo, presents a ghastly picture of the former president as a husband, one with restless loins, and a father with little or no care for the home. A few years ago, one of Obasanjo’s daughters got married in Ibadan. The father stayed away, but his sister, Mrs. Eweje, attended the ceremony. A few days later, Aso Rock issued a statement that General Obasanjo had disowned the child. On his first wife, Oluremi’s suspicion that her husband was playing the field, Adinoyi-Ojo writes: “Oluremi’s fears were founded. Obasanjo had become very influential and powerful not only within the army, but in the Nigerian society. People are attracted to power. Obasanjo did not seem sufficiently aware of his vulnerability. He took full advantage of his stature. Casual affairs led to babies. In all, there would be two dozens of them from as many women. He later married some of them, including Taiwo Martins and Linda Soares...Obasanjo tried to justify his actions by appealing to the age-old traditional African practice of polygamy. But that did not make it right. For in all honesty, Obasanjo has a major weakness for women–many of whom he did not treat well (lack of love and companionship, inadequate and irregular financial support, separate homes, long absences and the typical old-style macho aloofness of his generation of men in Nigeria).”
Taiwo Martins, with whom Obasanjo had two children, once told this magazine that her former husband is unfeeling. In an interview published in November 2000, Taiwo described Obasanjo as “wicked, close-fisted and a man of war,” a near mystery given that women love free spenders and men with tenderness. Yet, of all the myths swirling around the Obasanjo persona, the one about women is the most popular. The former president, claimed those close to him, is a glutton for sex. Moji, an army major, whom Obasanjo married in 1992 as single mother, is a victim of her former husband’s daring nature when it comes to seeking sexual pleasures. In an interview with NEWS STAR, Moji, a medical doctor, narrated how she caught Obasanjo on their matrimonial bed with a mistress on 4 June 1994. That day, her Non-Governmental Organisation, National Unity Promoters had a meeting at Obasanjo’s farm house in Otta.
 While the meeting was in progress, Obasanjo announced that he was going into the room to prepare for a foreign trip. He actually went into the room to romp with the woman that had sneaked into the house. Moji discovered her husband’s scheme when she headed for the room to pick something and found the door locked. She asked the cook if he locked the door, but he denied. The cook, however, explained that he could hear voices from the room. Moji returned to knock the door and Obasanjo was forced to open. In his company was a strange woman! “I knocked the door and the General opened for me and went back to sleep on the bed. On my own side of the matrimonial bed, I saw a woman covering her head...I didn’t ask any questions, but just picked what I came for,” she said. The drama was the beginning of the end of the marriage. After the drama, she said: “I just picked my things, including my unwashed clothes, and drove away. Since then, I have not returned,” Moji added.
In separate interviews with TheNEWS and Sunday Sun, Iyabo and Gbenga admitted that their father is libidinous. Iyabo, however, added that his love for women is just a little character flaw. That view is not exactly a popular one, certainly not with Moji, who reckons that Obasanjo will never conquer the throbbing in his loins. No woman, it is commonly said, is off-limits, including wives of his friends and relatives. In 1973, writes Adinoyi-Ojo, a huge marital row erupted in the Obasanjo home over allegations of infidelity. Wale Salako, a friend to Obasanjo, died in an auto crash and Obasanjo asked his wife and children to move in with him.
Soon after, however, the widow, Labo, and Oluremi fell out, forcing Obasanjo to relocate his late friend’s family. But that did not squelch the suspicions that had developed, as Oluremi insisted that the husband was having an affair, though denied, with Labo. But Oluremi was unconvinced and by early 1974, the union had degenerated.  Obasanjo reacted by getting her sacked from her job with the Ibru Organisation. But Michael Ibru, head of the organisation, directed she be paid her salary on compassionate grounds.
Similarly in 2002, Obasanjo was the subject of another romantic scandal, after snatching Bola Lamide Adegebenro, wife of Sina Adegbenro, his relative. Lamide, a mother of four in her mid-40s,  hails from Ilisan Remo in Ogun State.  Last year, her name featured in the Petroleum Technology Development Fund, PTDF, saga, when Obasanjo was accused of using PTDF money to buy her a Peugeot car from Briscoe Nigeria Limited, which incidentally deals exclusively in Toyota cars. The wife of a Second Republic politician, who hails from Ekiti State, is said to be one of the former president’s favourites. He never missed seeing the woman each time he went to Ado Ekiti and once gave her a note to a former governor of the state, directing him to give her state patronage. The former governor, was, however, said to have torn the note. The former president is said to be averse to giving money to women, but prefers sending them to other top shots in government. Some of his mistresses in Port Harcourt, River State, were said to have depended on the former governor of the state for cash gifts each time Obasanjo visited.
 Obasanjo also snared other women. They include Gold Oruh, a television journalist, who went to interview him and later bore him two children; another Ibo woman, who bore him two sons and a judge from Plateau State. Obasanjo’s last known partner was Stella (nee Abebe), who died in 2005, after a cosmetic surgery she underwent without her husband’s knowledge. The two, according to Adinoyi-Ojo, met in 1971, when Stella was 26 and Obasanjo, 37, was married.
Initially, Stella kept him at bay, but the resoluteness that had seen off similarly stiff resistance wore her down. When Stella’s parents got wind of the affair, they warned her not to see Obasanjo again. But by then, she was already pregnant for him. The product of the union is Olumuyiwa, who got married shortly after the mother’s death.  Stella’s entry into the Obasanjo harem caused a lot of disaffection, particularly in Oluremi, whose media duel with the new belle created ripples in the 80s. But Obasanjo, already accustomed to such eruptions, was not the least irritated. “Oluremi and Stella and anybody else that may be so married are legitimate and real wives of Olusegun Obasanjo,” he calmly said.
Many more would follow, as mistresses not wives, especially during his eight years in Aso Rock. All through his presidency, said sources, the State House was as much the seat of power as it was of lewdness. No space was off-limits, as the former was said to be in the habit of romping with women–young and old–even in his office and the guest houses.
On the day of the air crash in which a phalanx of army officers died in 2006, said a source, the former president was hosting a female managing director of a Federal Government owned  bank. An aide rushed in to give him the news of the mishap, but his details were still sketchy. By the time the aide knew the full range of accident, he returned to brief Obasanjo, who by then, had moved into his bedroom, the female MD in tow. The aide banged the door several times to attract the attention of his boss. But by the time his boss stepped out, he was naked, dripping with semen! He gave him the news and as Obasanjo turned to return to the room, the aide sighted the bank chief lying on the bed, also naked. Also in 2006, the president went to Singapore on an official trip. On his delegation was a former female minister, who later headed a government agency. One night at their hotel, a delegate on the trip met the former female minister, as she was leaving her room, next to his.  She was dressed in a jeans trousers and a shirt. Asked where she was headed, the former minister said she was going for dinner. But she never returned to her room. The next day, the  delegation had breakfast with Obasanjo in the presidential suite. After the breakfast, the source decided to hang back for about five minutes, while other members of the entourage followed the president to the first engagement that morning. As he sat, in the quiet suite, the former minister stepped out of Obasanjo’s room. She was wearing the same clothes she wore the previous night and she was dishevelled! According to the delegate, the said minister was seriously embarrassed.
Several  ministers who served under him were also said to have graced his bed. He was said to be particularly fond of one from the Northern part of the country and another from the South Eastern part of the country. So daring was he that he was said to be in the habit of raising his house robe to reveal his manhood when in the company of any of his consorts, regardless of whether he could be seen, by aides. Once, sources disclosed, an aide walked in while he was flashing his private part for a female minister. “The robe is a knee-length one. And here was the president of the Federal Republic, rolling the robe to expose his private part with a female minister sitting on the floor next to him. Worse, there was another female aide in the room”.
While female ministers wanted his attention exclusively, they stood no chance of getting that. A consort in his cabinet once nominated her friend for a ministerial slot, for which Obasanjo obliged. The consort also recruited a Personal Assistant for her friend, with a view to ensuring that she got information if and when Obasanjo showed interest in her friend. Obasanjo did. The personal assistant reported dutifully. However, the minister was not interested in satisfying Obasanjo’s lust and predictably, said sources, she did not last in office. Her sack was engineered by the same person that nominated her, who had been fed stories that her nominee was spending time with her prized man. Another of the stories making the rounds was that of a powerful minister who threw her letter of resignation at Obasanjo three weeks after her appointment. Sources said she was riled by the constant pat on the butt she got from Mr. President. She had to be persuaded to return to her job by then Vice President Abubakar Atiku and a minister, who influenced her appointment.
While a resident of Aso Rock, the former president’s sexual romps were often seen on camera circuit being monitored by security men. Often the snoopers were treated with x-rated pornography sometimes in the president’s office or sometimes in his bedroom. “As president, he had to be monitored in the Villa”, said a source close to the Obasanjo years. “But most times, the scenes captured on camera were the president’s sexual orgies’’.
A source in the last Senate said Obasanjo once told the leaders of the upper chamber a principle of life that he holds dear: that the most accurate gauge of the loyalty of a woman working with a man is for the man to sleep with her. Refusal, for whatever reasons, Obasanjo said, spells disloyalty. Also in an encounter with some Nigerians while in office, Obasanjo called  those who accused him of philandering of being bad students of history. He asked his listeners to name one of the famous presidents in the world still remembered long after he left office. When a member of his grovelling audience mentioned J.F Kennedy, the American leader in the early sixties, Obasanjo nodded in agreement and said: ‘‘that is the kind of person I want to be”. Kennedy too was noted for his affairs with many  women.  But Kennedy was not the only foreign leader Obasanjo modelled his peccadilloes after. He also imagined he could play Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister during the Second World War. Sometimes, Obasanjo asked some of his female officials to give him a bath, a habit  he claimed,  he copied from  Churchill.
While he enjoys snatching other people’s women, Obasanjo cannot stand being made a cuckold. This was a lesson a prominent Aso Rock official was taught in 2005. The official, who hails from a North Central state, had developed a taste for one Obasanjo’s mistresses. When the news got to Obasanjo, he ordered the official’s eviction from the Villa, on the pretext that the man had to be freed early enough to prepare for the governorship race in his state. His belongings were said to have been moved out of the Villa by 4 a.m on the day of his eviction. Another person who was punished for a similar offence, was Godwin Daboh, who Obasanjo learnt had an affair with Stella, while he was in jail. Daboh was kept in a detention centre in Aso Villa for several weeks.
Outside Aso Rock, the former president’s addiction to sex is a source of warning to females going to see him. Two years into his first term, a female African -American, who was to meet Obasanjo, was warned not to go unaccompanied. Her friends in the diplomatic community were said to have told her that Obasanjo’s reputation as a corruption hater might be unassailable, but they were worried by his libidinous predilections.
Also, a daughter of a prominent politician in the first and second republics was given a similar warning when she went to see Obasanjo for assistance in her job search. Though she went alone and did not get assaulted, she was said to have been outraged by what she saw while with Nigeria’s former leader. A young pregnant girl was said to have walked into her meeting with Obasanjo, to hitch up her wrapper and expose her private part, in the full glare of the visitor. And this happened inside Aso Rock!
Being calm when two women fight over one is something. Doing so when one’s son of all people accuses one  of sharing his wife, will certainly pose a fresh challenge. Will Obasanjo handle the latest scandal calmly? The world is watching.

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