Former Minister Lai Mohammed spoke about the impact that social media has had on his marriage of 40 years.
At a recent event celebrating Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka’s 90th birthday, former Minister Lai Mohammed discussed the challenges he faced while in office, including the spread of fake news and misinformation. He expressed concern about the far-reaching impact of these issues, noting that they can have a negative effect on society as a whole.
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!”