Mrs Tinubu who arrived at the First Lady’s wing was accompanied by her security aides.

The first lady on arrival, was received by the Permanent Secretary of the State House, Tijjani Umar and other Heads of Units in the First Lady’s Office.

Mrs Tinubu was therefore guided on a tour of offices within the First Lady’s wing, comprising the Administrative, ICT, Catering, Media and Protocol Units.

Mrs Tinubu was born on Sept. 21, 1960, to Itsekiri’s mother and Yoruba’s father.

She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education from the University of Ife and has undertaken several courses in some higher institutions.

She served as the wife of the Lagos State Governor between 1999 and 2007 and thereafter was elected Senator representing Lagos Central in the Senate.

Mrs Tinubu executed many philanthropic activities to alleviate the plight of vulnerable people in her Constituency.

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Dr. Sanwo-Olu, a medical doctor by profession, clocks 56 today, January 8.

Governor Sanwo-Olu in a statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Gboyega Akosile, on Sunday, described his wife as “a jewel of inestimable value, my partner, prayer warrior.”

The Governor also described his wife as a courageous, kind-hearted, and strong pillar of support, noting that the Dr. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu had touched the lives of millions of Nigerians, especially Lagosians first as a medical practitioner and currently as First Lady of the state.

“Today, on behalf of the good people of Lagos State, I celebrate a jewel of inestimable value, my partner, prayer warrior, mother of my children, and the First Lady of Lagos, Dr. Claudiana  Ibikunle Sanwo-Olu.

“You have complimented the roles that God has given us now with all sense of dignity. You have put everything you learned to work and I can see the complementary role you bring on board. We are indeed very grateful for a time like this that we are here to serve Lagos State.

“I thank you for your support, your time, and your contribution to the Greater Lagos agenda. I also commend your remarkable contributions to the family, the medical profession, Lagos State, and humanity.

“Happy birthday my darling wife. Thank you for your strength and selflessness as we continue in the service and governance of Lagos State. I wish you all the very best in life”, Governor Sanwo-Olu prayed.

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The news of the death of Ovajimo was announced by Suleiman Haruna, Director of Information in the Office of the First Lady, on his Facebook page.

Although the specifics of the incident were not stated in the brief message, it, however described the late Ovajimo glowing language, saying he would be greatly missed.

“Today we lost Mohammed Yusuf Ovajimo a professional photographer of the First Lady of Nigeria. He is an accomplished professional with loads of skill and great human relations. He will be greatly missed. May his soul rest in perfect peace”, it said.

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Renaming it “Office of the Wife of the President”, the presidency stated that Mrs. Buhari would, for now, be saddled with women and youth related issues in the country.

The Presidency was reacting to allegations that the wife of President Muhammadu Buhari has moved into the First Lady’s office in the Aso Villa.

Describing the allegation as totally false and fictitious, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu said that even though there was absolutely nothing wrong with Mrs. Buhari making use of the office space reserved for the First Lady, she had not done so in her capacity.

Shehu stated that under president Buhari, the office shall be completely different from what obtained in the past, saying that the era of the First Ladies issuing oil wells and licenses was gone.

“President Buhari promised that there would be a clear difference between the role played by his wife during his tenure and that played by many previous First Ladies.

“All that ostentation, ubiquitousness and arrogance we have come to expect from the office are over and done with. Change has come.

“The ideal platform from which she will be useful to Nigeria’s women and children is still being thought out. Once this has been concluded on, Mrs. Buhari’s role will become clearer to all Nigerians. There will be nothing shady or hidden about it. There will be no access to public funds. It will be purely private and voluntary”, he said.

The presidential spokesman recalled that the time Mrs. Buhari had to make use of the office was at the beginning of the present administration, adding that the meeting during which she hosted the wives of governors was held in a section of the Villa’s banquet hall, not in the First Lady’s office.

“Her only visit to that office was at the point of the take-over of the Villa by the incoming administration.

“Out of respect to Mrs. Buhari, the Sierra-Leonian First Lady, Mrs. Sia Koroma recently surrendered her position of head of Africa’s First Ladies to Mrs. Buhari, inviting her to take up the same seat which Mrs. Jonathan hurriedly handed over a few weeks to the handover of her husband’s government to President Buhari.

“Again, all these things are currently under consideration and no decision has been arrived at presently,” Shehu said.

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Speaking during the Sallah party she organized for Nigerian children at the old Banquet hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, she sought the children’s permission to leave the party after staying for about two hours in order to go home to cook for President Muhammadu Buhari.

“I’m going to leave you soon. I want to go back home to cook for my husband. Because my children are here playing with you, so nobody is at home, only my husband. So I want to go back home to be with him and also cook dinner for him,” the first lady said.

She urged the children to continue to pray for other Nigerian children who are presently at Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)’ camps due to the insurgency.

Stressing that the administration of her husband attaches importance to Nigerian children’s welfare, protection and development, she urged them to be good ambassadors to their parents.

She said: “The future of this great country lies in your hands. You are to compliment the efforts of government by working very hard in school and to be obedient to your parents.”

“Tomorrow, you may be the President, the President’s wife, senator, honourable members, governors, medical doctors, teacher, journalist, engineer, nurse, lawyer and the rest of our honourable professions,” she added

The Wife of the President also urged parents to encourage and monitor their children.

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The reports alleged that aside being paid the said amount, the President’s wife connived with a former Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, in a number of schemes through which they looted the resources of the NDDC.

However, in a statement issued by her media assistant, Ayo Adewuyi, Jonathan described the report as hoax, claiming it was aimed at misleading unsuspecting members of the public and recruiting them into an ochestrated hate campaign against her person.

Adewuyi also claimed that the report was intended to portray his principal as an overbearing and intrusive woman contrary to her well known passion for peace and advancement of the cause of women and children in Nigeria.

“Nigerians are very conversant with the workings of the National Assembly regarding passage of Budgets.

“Parliamentary process requires that the Appropriation Bill goes through first reading, second reading and third reading and subsequent harmonisation by the two chambers.

“One then wonders at which level of this process the First Lady influenced the passage of NDDC Budget that warranted her being paid N3 billion for the alleged ‘Consultancy.’

“Therefore, it will be impossible for one single person to influence its passage or is the author trying to indict our lawmakers?

“The report is therefore, to say the least, dubious, diversionary, unfair, unkind, and totally unacceptable. Dame Patience Jonathan did no such thing,” it asserted.

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Mrs. Jonathan who said this in her address at a civic reception organised in her honour by the Ohuhu clan, her maternal home in Umuahia North Local Government Area of Abia State, urged women to vote massively for President Goodluck Jonathan.

“He has met the 35 per cent Affirmative Action for the appointment of women into political positions in the country. The President has done a lot to tackle the developmental needs of the nation, in spite of the challenges and opposition against his administration,” she said.

She appealed to women to take advantage of their population to re-elect the President for a second tenure, stressing that this was because women make up the majority of the population of Nigeria and constitute the greater majority of the electorate.

“Let us take advantage of our numerical strength to vote for the re-election of the President, because more Nigerian women had been appointed to political offices by Jonathan’s administration than past administrations.

“Nigerian women should no longer go back to the kitchen. It is not our portion to go back to the kitchen. We have women that are capable. We can contribute our quota to the development of Nigeria.

“We women are suffering but God will see us through,” she said, adding that the president had helped to alleviate the plight of Nigerian women.

She thanked the Ohuhu community for the honour done to her, saying she would all her life cherish the title of “Ngalari Ohuhu’’ (a golden daughter of Ohuhu) conferred on her.

First Lady, Patience Jonathan,, who was guest of honour at the event, said his administration had received tremendous support from President Jonathan and his wife.

Orji described the reception as well-deserved, saying it was a rare privilege for a community to produce the wife of the President.

He described Abia as predominantly PDP, assuring that its people would vote massively for Jonathan during the presidential election.

The President-General of Ohuhu Welfare Union, Godwin Okengwu, said the people were happy to be related to Patience Jonathan.

Okengwu described her as “an exemplary woman’’ and a worthy ambassador of Ohuhu who had contributed immensely to the development of the area and Nigeria in general.
He described the event as “a home-coming” for Patience Jonathan, saying the community “is proud of her”.

The Chairman of Ohuhu Traditional Rulers Council, Eze Iheanyichukwu Nwokenna, described the Ngalari title as “dignifying,” stressing that the title would be peculiar to Patience Jonathan and would not be conferred on any other woman in the community.

The PDP governorship candidate in the state, Okezie Ikpeazu, commended the First Lady and assured her that Abia would vote massively for the re-election of President Jonathan.

The highlights of the well-attended ceremony also included the ground-breaking for the construction of a N500 million ultra-modern Ohuhu Civic Centre by Patience Jonathan.
The ceremony was attended by prominent politicians from Abia and Anambra, including Arthur Eze, who donated N250 million towards the construction of the Civic Centre.

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The action called “Operation kick Governor Seriake Dickson out of office” is coming barely a few months after her resignation as a controversial Super Permanent Secretary in the Bayelsa State civil service.

Sources said that the First Lady will soon commence her campaign of either hounding Dickson out of office before the 2016 governorship poll in the state or denying him a re-election ticket.

Intelligent Presidency sources said that the First Lady, as part of her strategies, had recruited the Transformation Ambassador of Nigeria (TAN), a campaign vehicle of her husband to drive the process.

Besides, Mrs. Jonathan was said to have consulted close associates and loyalists of the former Governor of Bayelsa state, Timipre Sylva, to lead TAN to the state.

But many elders and major stakeholders in the state said to have expressed anger with Mrs. Jonathan for plotting to destabilise the state with TAN.

The elders were said to have vowed to resist attempts by the First Lady to create Rivers State’s crisis in Bayelsa State.

It was learnt that the elders were making plans to report the development to President Jonathan through a high-powered delegation.

A source who is aware of the plot said the First Lady had already tinkered with the composition of TAN in the state and appointed a former Deputy Governor, Werinipre Seibarugu, to head the group for the new assignment.

Seibarugu, a known associate of the first lady, was a deputy governor under Sylva who a few months ago led other loyalists of Sylva back to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

It was learnt that the leader of TAN in the state, Mr. Talford Ongolo, had been pushed aside to give way for Seibarugu.

The founder of TAN, Ifeanyi Uba, attended one of the chaotic event organised by the First Lady in Yenagoa to inaugurate the distribution of relief materials to women in the state.

The source who pleaded anonymity said the strategy had been perfected adding that soon TAN and its co-travelers comprising mainly of Sylva loyalists would begin their propaganda.

He said Yenagoa and the entire state will soon witness unprecedented anti-Dickson’s rallies, movements and programmes.

He noted that the anti-Dickson activities targeted to undermine the administration of Governor Dickson will be held under police protection.

He said: “This is just the latest addition to the bag of strategies mapped out by the First Lady to deny remove Dickson. You remember that she influenced the posting of the new Commissioner of Police, Mr. Valentine Ntomchukwu to the state for this reason.

“You recalled that she resigned her appointment as the permanent secretary to give her the moral ground to launch this war. Besides, you heard of her partnership with some federal lawmakers.

“Right now she has resolved that TAN should drive the process. She is working with the loyalists of former governor Sylva and they are coming under the guise of TAN to work against Dickson.

“That is her new strategy now. She wants to use the TAN structure which is everywhere to actualise her ambition”.

He said the First Lady had already promised her foot soldiers juicy rewards after a successful campaign.

“They are going to use TAN like a body to fight the government and they are going to engage in propaganda. It is the same thing that they are doing now, everything possible to rubbish the countryman governor, whose only offence is said to be his refusal to share the state’s meagre resources with her.

“Her number one agenda is to get him out of the way. She has promised them handsomely that once the mission is accomplished, they will be the major beneficiaries.

“A former deputy governor from the state has accepted to lead the campaign. The woman has ordered immediate change in the leadership of TAN in the state so that the former deputy governor will now be used as the arrowhead to begin the onslaught and the campaign against Dickson.

“Very soon you will see unprecedented rallies where people will be mobilised to stand against the governor. These activities will be held under police protection. Members of this group have huge war chests”, he said.

The source also said that already, Seibarugu had started playing a crucial role in the ongoing distribution of items belonging to the office of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

“Seibarugu is the one handling the distribution of these items now. Even all the signatories for TAN bear Seibarugu’s name. Talford Ongolo has been pushed aside”, he said.

The source further said that the first lady had allegedly converted the MDGs as part of her pet project, Women for Change.

According to him Mrs. Jonathan distributes these items to people as though they came from her pet project.

“The first lady has converted the MDG programme as part of her personal NGO, Women for Change Iniative. When she goes round the states, she distributes these items as if they came from his pet project.

“But we know that the MDG is a federal government programme with the states as partners. But in all these, many Bayelsa elders and critical stakeholders in the polity who are aware of this scheme are angry with her over her plot to use TAN to fight the governor.

“Very soon, these elders will be meeting with the President to plead with him to call his wife to order.”

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Amaechi had while speaking in Port Harcourt at the joint graduation of the students of the University of Ibadan and pioneer graduates of Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, on Saturday was quoted as saying that his problem with Mrs. Jonathan started after he rejected her demand.

“I refused to give them money in Abuja because if I do that, I won’t be able to carry out any development project or finish the road from Rumuolumeni to Rumuepirikom.

“The quarrel between me and the wife of the President is because she said I should bring your money, Rivers people, money and share with her,” the governor reportedly said.

But Mrs. Jonathan, in a statement by her media assistant, Ayo Adewuyi, said Amaechi’s statement was a deliberate attempt to malign her and score cheap political point.

She further described the governor’s statement as a lie designed to denigrate her person and rubbish the Presidency.

She said she could not have made such a request from the governor either directly or indirectly.

The statement read, “Having waited patiently for Governor Amaechi to refute the statement credited to him about the First Lady, (with the assumption that he was misquoted), it has become clear that it was a deliberate attempt to malign Dame Patience Jonathan and score cheap political point.

“The governor may have been beclouded by the political uncertainty surrounding him to make such a jaundiced and unsubstantiated allegation that the First Lady asked him to bring Rivers State’s money to share.

“This is a blatant lie designed to denigrate the person of Dame Patience Jonathan and rubbish the Presidency. This is to say the least, most unfortunate.

“It is crystal clear that Governor Amaechi is looking for a cheap excuse for his failure in the governance of the state. We say without any iota of equivocation that the First Lady never made such a request and could not have done so in any way either directly and indirectly.

“The First Lady as an indigene of Rivers State is more concerned with the socio-economic development of the state and in a peaceful atmosphere. This guerrilla political warfare must stop.”

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Amaechi said on Saturday that the First Lady! an indigene of the state, became angry with him after he turned down the dubious demand.

The governor who spoke in Port Harcourt at the joint graduation of the students of University of Ibadan and pioneer graduates of Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, who recounted
his role in stopping militancy in the state, said the First Lady deliberately ensured militants, who had fled the state to Lagos, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, returned to fight him.

“I refused to give them money in Abuja because if I do that, I won’t be able to carry out any development project or finish the road from Rumuolumeni to Rumuepirikom.

“The quarrel between me and the wife of the President is because she said I should bring your money, Rivers people money and share with her,” he explained.

Amaechi called on the people of the state as well as members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to ensure the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, does not manipulate and rig the 2015 general elections.

Amaechi said if the PDP was allowed to rig the election and President Goodluck Jonathan, a member of the party, was voted back into office in 2015, poverty and underdevelopment would ruin the state.

“Now that you are graduates, you are now eligible voters that can use your voters’ card to change society,” he said.

“Ask yourselves this question that I have always asked Rivers people. What have we (Rivers people) done to President Jonathan that he has refused to bring any project to Rivers State. We had to fight them before they could do the East-West road.

“I had to abuse the federal government and they abused me back before they could do the work you now see on that road,” he said.

The governor alleged that President Jonathan, who is from the South-South zone to which Rivers State belongs, had taken the state’s oil well from Soku to his (Jonathan) home state, Bayelsa State.

He also said 41 oil wells in Etche Local Council of the state was given to Abia State.

He asked, “Is the President or his wife from Abia State? Why do they want us to suffer? If President Jonathan comes back to power in 2015, Rivers State economy will crash.”

Amaechi lamented the consistent shortfall in oil revenue and the negative impact it had created to frustrate innocent Nigerians and urged the graduates to question the inconsistencies of the federal government in revenue sharing between it and the states.

“Graduates like you have the opportunity to ask the federal government to explain what they are doing with our money,” Mr. Amaechi advised.

“Since September this year, the federal government has not been able to pay any state from the federal allocation. They said they don’t have money. This is the first time that our president is emerging as the 6th richest person in Africa.”

He tasked the graduates to register as eligible voters ahead of the general elections.

Amaechi also blamed the failure of the Rumuolumeni Road construction project on the immediate past minister of state for education, Nyesom Wike, whom he described as incompetent.

He said the state government awarded N1.5 billion for the construction of internal roads in Rumulumeni and had already given the indigenous contractor, who is also from the area, N700 million.

“We said Rivers money for Rivers people because they don’t have capital. This man took the contract and gave it to a man who now wants to be governor.

“This man that is being backed by Patience Jonathan gave N250 million to the indigenous contractor and disappeared with N450 million without constructing the road. And this is the man who wants to be governor, with billboards screaming the concept of ‘New Vision’.

“What kind of vision is that for a thief? They have been thieves for too long so it cannot be new vision. The only thing that is new is that he has industrialized stealing. The former minister of state for education in a radio interview said, he ‘shedded tears’. Everyone knows there’s no word like that.”

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