August 29, (THEWILL) – The immediate past Chairman of the Benue Internal Revenue Service (BIRS), Mrs Mimi Adzape-Orubibi, has raised the alarm over an orchestrated campaign of calumny against her person and family.
According to her, she has been targeted for an alleged smear campaign, for reasons best known to the masterminds of the act.
The former senatorial candidate for Benue North East on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was reacting to a recent social media publication, which alleged that she had abandoned her children in Canada and returned home to romance with a Benue-based businessman, Mr Gbaden Jam, in Gboko.
According to her, the social media report claimed that the estranged wife of the businessman, who just returned from her trip abroad, met her (Mimi) in the matrimonial home of the said businessman in Gboko and threw her out.
Shocked by the outright lies in the said publication, Chief Adzape-Orubibi fingered desperate foes for masterminding the publication.
She wondered why anyone would claim that she abandoned her children in Canada to reside in Gboko when she was still in Canada with her children, contrary to what was claimed in the said report.
“It is simply unbelievable, unimaginable falsehood and preposterous for anyone to take to social media to defame my reputation and even drag my children into such outright falsehood; claiming that I abandoned my children and returned to Nigeria to live with a Gboko-based businessman and his wife came and threw me outside.”
Mrs Orubibi, who said she was in Canada with her family, wondered why such a fabricated falsehood was against her, explaining that she knew the said businessman as a family friend.
“It is, therefore, not right for anyone to try to ridicule me before the public through deliberate falsehood. I will not hesitate to seek redress on this matter and have already given a go-ahead to my lawyers.”
A close relation of the businessman and family source, who identified herself as Madam Mummy Ango, who claimed to be privy to the matrimonial dispute between the estranged couple, expressed regrets that the former BIRS Chairman and her children were mischievously dragged into a matrimonial dispute they know nothing about.
She alleged that the estranged wife of the businessman, Madam Lante, whom he divorced about two years ago, should be held liable for the publication because her selfie at the Police Station in Gboko was used in the said publication, claiming that she did that in a desperate bid to seek who to blame for her failed marriage.
“The woman who snapped herself a selfie at the Police station in Gboko, which was used with other pictures in the said social media story was my relation’s wife. They have children but somewhere along the line, they had big issues that were beyond them to resolve.”
Mrs Ango stated that due to irreconcilable differences, the traditional rulers of the couple had performed a formal traditional divorce ceremony, during which she was handed over to the traditional ruler of her community over two years ago and her whereabouts were not known to her estranged husband.
“She, however, came in recently, claiming that she had been in the United Kingdom to look after her 22-year-old son, who is pursuing a Masters Programme there.
An eyewitness account had it that the divorcee arrived at her former husband’s home in Gboko forced her way into the residence and locked herself in one of the rooms for over 24 hours without permission and the ex-husband had to report to the Police, who later took her to the station.
At the station, she was alleged to have told the police that even though she had returned to her parents, she was back to her estranged husband’s house.
Confirming the incident, Mr Gbaden told the Police that if her former wife wanted to come back, it had to be done through the right channels followed by the marriage’s dissolution.
