Yes, her phones are no longer buzzing like high-pitched alarums. Having realised that, her coterie of friends and political associates have stopped ennobling her as a warrior forged of steel and decades of exposure in a burning furnace. The secret is out: when the going gets tough and the heat intensifies, even a tough-talking Patience Jonathan loses her nerve and exaggerated wits. Indeed, the loquacious and highly controversial former Firstlady, is not finding it easy; even as you read. But while she stews in boiling waters, her closest friends and associates have deserted her. Friends and political associates of Patience began to avoid her soon after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) commenced investigations about her alleged role in embezzlement of and diversion of public funds amounting to billions of naira.
Immediately the EFCC pronounced her as a person of interest in its ongoing anti-corruption campaign and investigations, most of Patience’s friends vanished from her side into thin air. Many other political associates and acquaintances who flaunted their relationship with her are now denying having anything to do with him. It would be recalled that such career sycophants misled former first lady and wife of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Patience. Patience’s praise-singers morphed into a group called Friends of the First Lady of Nigeria (FFLN) and the group comprised of self-acclaimed society women who paraded themselves Dame Patience’s closest circle of friends and associates.
The objective of the group was simple: to reap bountifully from the defunct dispensation. And in bid to be part of the group, not a few women in Lagos, particularly from the city’s upper crust, engaged in a tiresome hustle to be part of the group. It is interesting to know that this same group of women formed an impenetrable ring around Hajia Turai Yar’Adua, wife to the late President, Umar Musa Yar’Adua. Today, the fortune hunters have shifted their allegiance from Hajia Turai and Dame Patience and transferred it to Aisha Buhari. Ask Pelebo Banigo, she would confirm this
