• Dame’s sibling says well-wishers provided souvenirs
President Goodluck Jonathan expended little or nothing at the wedding of his daughter, Faith Osakwe, penultimate weekend in Abuja, Chief (Mrs.) Esther Gbonkumo, a member of the first family, has stated.
She described the controversies trailing the wedding of as unnecessary.
The President’s daughter, Faith, had last week wedded the Prince of Osimotu Kingdom, Godswill Osim from Abi, Cross River State.
The week-long event was heralded by a superlative engagement ceremony at Otuoke, Bayelsa State hometown of Jonathan and the wedding proper held at the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, with all the razzmatazz of a typical high society wedding.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Nation over the weekend, Mrs. Gbonkumo, who is a sibling of the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, said insinuations that the presidency probably emptied the national treasury to give the president’s daughter a befitting wedding, was a misrepresentation of facts.
According to her: “The opposition is just out to cast aspersions on the president. As an insider, I know for certain that President Goodluck Jonathan didn’t tamper with the public purse just because he wants to give his daughter out in marriage.
“Actually, a lot of the things you saw on the day of the wedding as gifts and souvenirs were donated by well-wishers from different parts of the world.
“Most of the donors who heard the president’s daughter was getting married came to shower gifts on their own volition.”
On why the president accepted the donations knowing such could raise serious moral question, she emphasised Jonathan had no fore knowledge of the donations in the first place.
“Even the president hardly knew most of the donors. Most of the donors were women and friends of the First Lady, who came from different parts of the world to show solidarity and support for Dame Patience Jonathan.
“Specifically, those who brought the customised iPads, about 50 of them, also used the opportunity afforded by the gathering of who is who across the world to advertise their services. So, it is not as if they wasted money as such.”
The opposition, she reiterated, is just out to make an issue where there is none.
“In African tradition and customs, you don’t reject gifts at such occasions because everybody is supposed to be in a celebration mood.
“So, there is really no reason why people should be hell-bent in character assassination of the first family,” she stressed.
Source: The Nation
