Sunday, March 24, 2024 - Former minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, has recalled how social media threatened his 40-year-old marriage.
Lai, who spoke in Lagos at an event to
commemorate the 90th birthday anniversary of Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate,
stated that one of the pressing challenges he faced in office as minister was
the spate of ‘’fake news, misinformation and disinformation'' which were
far-reaching.
He said;
“Permit me to share publicly with you today
for the first time, how social media threatened the foundation of my
forty-year-old marriage.
“It was sometimes in 2018 when I came to
Lagos from Abuja for an official assignment. As usual, I retire to bed about
midnight, but about 3 am, my wife gently roused me from my slumber.
“At first, I panicked, fearing that there had been a security
breach, but my wife’s mien belied that possibility, for she was calm and
composed
“Solemnly, my wife asked me if I was fully
awake as there were some serious issues to discuss. I could not fathom what was
that urgent or serious to warrant being woken up at this time of the night.
“My mind immediately did a
kaleidoscope of my rascalities and escapades in the last few months. Daddy,
death can come knocking at any moment, please let me also, as your wife, be a
signatory to your oversea account in Ali Financial which contains 1.3 billion
dollars.
“I spent the next two hours or so, sweating
to convince my wife that there is no iota of truth in the allegation. I had to fetch a calculator and reproduce the
federal appropriation act for 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 in the middle of the
night and explain to her why it is simply preposterous for me to have 1.3
billion dollars in a foreign account.
“I explained to her that there is no year my
capital budget exceeded N5 billion, which then, at about N400 to a
dollar, was just 12.5 million dollars.
“I explained that, even if I managed to divert every kobo of
it to my personal account, it will take at least, 104 years to save the sum of
1.3 billion dollars being peddled that I stole.
“My wife insisted that the whole world
believed the story and that her friends had as a result, besieged her with all
kinds of requests.
“She said every effort on her part to
deny the existence of this foreign account only succeeded in depicting her in
the minds of her friends as a selfish, greedy and uncaring friend. Is my wife truly convinced of my innocence? The
answer is in the wind!”
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