Diezani is grandmother of Nigeria’s biggest economic heist! She makes Abacha look like a minnow when compared to her penchant for grand financial larceny! Nigerians may be infuriated and having sleepless nights over the fleecing spree allegedly embarked upon by the Nigeria’s last substantive Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke; one man who appears unperturbed about her ordeals is the man under whose matrimonial authority she was before politics took her up the ladder of fame and later down the path of infamy. Diezani’s husband, Admiral Allison Madueke (retired) is a happy man for a reason unknown to many.
Cited at the Ikoyi Boat Club where he had come to unwind in the late hours of Friday, Madueke, whose chubby and radiant looks belie that of a man under any kind of pressure, was all smiles and cheers. His insouciant disposition became more telling as he warmed up and exchanged pleasantries with everyone who came around him.
It was tough attempting to reconcile his merry mien and very cheery outlook with that of a man whose wife has been battling debilitating cancer on the one hand and fighting to save her neck from the noose-tightening war being waged against her from both the domestic and international fronts. The retired top naval officer looks every inch happy, and it did not appear his version of happiness was fathomed.
Madueke was one-time Chief of Naval Staff and governed Imo and Anambra State at different times back in the military days. He was said to have been instrumental to his wife, Diezani’s feverish rise in politics; though she had a sterling career as a technocrat who became the first woman to be appointed to the board of Shell Petroleum Development Company Nigeria before joining the government of late President Umaru Yar’Adua, as Minister of Transport, from where she rose to become Federal Minister of Mines & Steel Development, then Nigeria’s first female Minister of Petroleum Resources and later, OPEC President.
