{"id":166089,"date":"2025-06-08T10:11:01","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T09:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/ive-never-begged-wike-for-money-abati-fires-back"},"modified":"2025-06-08T11:23:46","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T10:23:46","slug":"ive-never-begged-wike-for-money-abati-fires-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/ive-never-begged-wike-for-money-abati-fires-back","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve never begged Wike for money \u2013 Abati fires back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>A former presidential media aide, Reuben Abati, has hit back at Lere Olayinka, a media aide to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike.<\/p>\n<p>Olayinka, appearing on the Arise News\u2019 breakfast programme, \u2018The Morning Show\u2019, on Friday, made several allegations.<\/p>\n<p>One of the claims he made was that Abati once requested for money from Wike.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have never approached Minister Nyesom Wike to beg for money \u2013 that is a lie.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf anyone \u2013 including an ex-partner \u2013 went to him under false pretences to solicit funds in my name, I place a clear disclaimer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSuch actions were not authorised by me, and Minister Wike reserves every right to call it out as fraud,\u201d Abati said in a statement posted on social media on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Addressing another allegation, Abati insisted that he was never asked by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to return any money.<\/p>\n<p>Abati claimed that the EFCC under former chairman, Ibrahim Magu, apologised to him over the issue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. A former presidential media aide, Reuben Abati, has hit back at Lere Olayinka, a media aide to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike. Olayinka, appearing on the Arise News\u2019 breakfast programme, \u2018The Morning Show\u2019, on Friday, made several allegations. One of the claims he made was that Abati once [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":166088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[10239,254,454],"class_list":["post-166089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-abati","tag-nigeria","tag-wike"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>I\u2019ve never begged Wike for money \u2013 Abati fires back - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A former presidential media aide, Reuben Abati, has hit back at Lere Olayinka, a media aide to the Minister of the Feder ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/ive-never-begged-wike-for-money-abati-fires-back\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I\u2019ve never begged Wike for money \u2013 Abati fires back\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A former presidential media aide, Reuben Abati, has hit back at Lere Olayinka, a media aide to the Minister of the Feder ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/ive-never-begged-wike-for-money-abati-fires-back\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-08T09:11:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-08T10:23:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/06\/sm_1749365697.314089.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/ive-never-begged-wike-for-money-abati-fires-back#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/ive-never-begged-wike-for-money-abati-fires-back\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"I\u2019ve never begged Wike for money \u2013 Abati fires back\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-06-08T09:11:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-06-08T10:23:46+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/ive-never-begged-wike-for-money-abati-fires-back\"},\"wordCount\":184,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/ive-never-begged-wike-for-money-abati-fires-back#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/06\/sm_1749365697.314089.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Abati\",\"Nigeria\",\"Wike\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/ive-never-begged-wike-for-money-abati-fires-back#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/ive-never-begged-wike-for-money-abati-fires-back\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/ive-never-begged-wike-for-money-abati-fires-back\",\"name\":\"I\u2019ve never begged Wike for money \u2013 Abati fires back - 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