The Truth About My Ailment -Jide Omokore

Penultimate week, the social media celebrated the supposed heart attack at the Aso Rock seat of power of celebrated billionaire and a close friend of President Goodluck Jonathan, Basorun Jide Omokore and even claimed he was in the hospital, where medical doctors were battling to save his life.

One of the social media that carried the story claimed that the Asiwaju of Okun and the brain behind Atlantic Resources  Group, one of Nigeria’s biggest privately owned groups with considerable interest in oil trading and exploration, haulage services, steel, dredging, engineering and property development with an animal turnover of well over $400m, suffered the said attack while in a private meeting with the President.

Minutes after the story broke, First Weekly made calls to some of the close aides of the oil magnate to confirm the veracity of the story.

One of his aides told us that the man was nowhere near Abuja as at the time of the story, “I can tell you that oga is in Ikoyi, Lagos, you can go to his house, he left work not quite long.”

At his Ikoyi home, we were told when we called that he was resting, “He is at home, if you are close to him, you’ll know he has a back problem and even goes about doing his business with a cast neck, it is nothing serious, it is not new at all, you’ll recall that it was this same medium that came up with his supposed arrest in France at a time he was in America. Is it a crime to be successful in Nigeria again? This man is not the kind of person he’s being taken for, those who know him will attest to his personality.”

April 22, 2014