Secret Reporters No place to hide
…Inside details of the extravagant burial
Fejiro Oliver
Weeks after Mrs. Patience Jonathan buried mum, Francis Oba in what has been termed the most extravagant burial ceremony in Nigeria; information available to us is that the Dame has directed the Federal Ministry of Education to issue verbal query to the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Otuoke, Bayelsa State, Prof. Mobolaji Ebenezer Aluko for failing to attend his mum’s burial ceremony.
According to the source who spoke to us, Prof. Aluko has been very unhappy since the Education Minister called him to issue him the query, wondering the crime it is to have other private engagements when the burial of a government official is taking place. The query we gathered stemmed from the fact that he ought to have attended since he was presiding over a University resident in the President’s domain.
A reliable source revealed to us that over N530 million was spent on the burial, but refused to tell us the exact amount. “I cannot tell you the exact amount, but know that the First Lady spent over N530 million just to bury her mother”. A source who was at the venue of the wedding noted that Six bullet proof Jeeps was brought into the venue by Tom Ateke, whom Patience Jonathan paid N12 Million to help make the boys in the region calm, so as not to ferment trouble.
The tents for the burial we gathered gutted a whooping sum of N162 Million, while the VIP section was decorated with N30 Million. According to a source, the First Lady pleaded with the event decorators not to remove any of the objects used in decorating the VIP venue as he was ready to pay thrice the money. A total of twelve trucks were used to ferry the tents and other equipment used for the burial from Lagos State, stated a source.
“I saw these guys here for constantly for over a month decorating all these tents and I was wondering what they were going to use it, not until I knew it was for the burial of Mama Patience”, a source affirmed. The roads leading to the venue of the burial were hurriedly patched up while the notorious East West road in Port Harcourt had a shoddy job done on it for ease of transport during the burial.
“You see this street light? Na the burial make am begin work, if not all here na darkness before” stated a source in a popular Nigerian language known as pidgin English, while narrating the sudden beauty of the town.
Two magnificent buildings were built within a space of two months by Mrs. Jonathan to house guest guests; and the house we also gathered have been abandoned after the burial.
