Man claims to be Wike’s classmate, says FCT minister didn’t drive Mercedes Benz as student, too poor to afford bicycle

Allen Wogu, an alleged classmate of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike, has dismissed assertion that Wike made money early in life and drove a Mercedes Benz car as a student at the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT).

Wike made the claim on Channels Television last week to deny allegation of corruptly enriching himself levelled by former Rivers Governor Rotimi Amaechi, insisting he is a self-made man who started making money at a very young age.

Wogu, who insists he was contemporaneous with Wike on campus, has come out of the woods to speak up.

Wogu, in a Facebook post, countered on Thursday that Wike lied about coming from a privileged background as he was known to be a struggling student who could not afford even a bicycle, talk less of driving a Benz, while studying political science and education in the late 1980s.

“The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. I wonder how someone who has classmates who, by God’s grace, are alive would come on national television and claim he was driving a Mercedes Benz car between 1986 and 1990 in the University of Port Harcourt, where he studied political science/education,” Wogu wrote.

“Jesus Christ, please have mercy. This guy wore sandals with buckles and never rode on a bicycle throughout our 4-year sojourn, and I have over 4000 witnesses. So this is how he has been lying? Too shocked here.”

Wike dismissed on television allegation of looting public funds, saying he bought with his own money the Rolls Royce he publicly flaunted in Port Harcourt earlier this year and did not receive the car as a bribe or political favour.

Contrary to public perception, he stressed, no contractor or associate gave the car to him in exchange for infrastructure contact awards when he was Rivers Governor or in his present job as FCT Minister.

“I have a Rolls-Royce. So what? Nobody gave it to me. I bought it. People ask, ‘With what money?’ Let me tell you – I came from a comfortable background,” he boasted.

He said his father was a general manager of several companies and he enjoyed a decent lifestyle even as a student.

“As a student, I was driving a Mercedes-Benz. So don’t let anyone tell you I suddenly became wealthy. I didn’t come from poverty.”

But other folks have surfaced who said they know Wike’s family and countered that his father was not a general manager of any company, rather he was a Pastor and a poor man who could not have bought his son a car as a student.

Others also insist that the elder Wike rejected the younger Wike at some point and drove him away from the family because of alleged bad conduct.