PAT AJUDUA RESURFACES

The ignominy of what has befallen her husband in the last couple of years is enough to make any woman recoil permanently into a countryside cocoon where she would be far from civilization and any reminder of the past. Barrister Pat is the wife of alleged advance fee fraud kingpin, Fred Ajudua, who has been in detention for allegedly defrauding former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Ishaya Bamaiyi of about $ 5.9m. Despite all these travails, his wife, the mother of his only son, Bobo, has been thriving politically back in Delta State where she was, until recently, minority leader in the House of Assembly. For a woman who held the social scene by the jugular, literally, Pat’s relocation to Delta State was not unexpected given Fred’s constant brushes with the law. In her husband’s heydays, the University of Lagos law graduate rocked the chic scene like she would never age. With so much money at her beck and call, she was the quintessential fashionista with so much to spend on the latest accessories and enjoyed a cheerleader followership among women who aspired to be like her. In the last couple of years, not much had been heard about Pat except those who keenly followed Delta State politics until she was sighted at a highbrow event in Lagos recently. Without the fanfare that always trailed her back in the days, Pat was almost anonymous except for a few people who recognized her and came to say hi or express their sympathy for her husband whose bail application on the grounds of ill health was turned down by the court recently. common dross that is always left of yesterday. Notwithstanding their apparent retreat into oblivion, they will be remembered as the pack that stood out of the island in- crowd. They rocked Victoria Island, Ikoyi and Lekki in their boom time. Some of them ran night clubs, some ran fashion outfits and some were widely acknowledged as businessmen. Yet there were a few that didn’t have visible source of income, yet they were considered rich and jolly good men. They were close to the best babes and they rode the best cars that time. We are talking about Murphy Okojie, the owner Murphis Plaza, Biola Adegoke of Grotto, Solomon Arueya of Westside CDs opposite Oceanview Restaurant back then, Kennedy Alogaga of Luomo, Ojukwu of Wardrobe, Nasir Ado Ibrahim of Club Towers, and many more. Some of the guys have gone ultra- low profile way before the onset of the recession. Call it the wisdom of the streets. career, Osaze died in his sleep at the Transcorp Hotel, Abuja while on official assignment. He was just 45. Ibukun was 44 then. Understandably, there is no longer poetry in her soul. A part of her left with Osaze. Their two children, Adesuwa and Ehioze, are now her only source of joy, her constant companion during dark, lonely nights. Ibukun has shut her heart to any external intrusion. Now 49, Ibukun’s youthful beauty is still a pull for men and a muse for their poetic inclinations. But getting her to sit to listen to sugar- coated, kneeweakening rhapsodies from eager men has been as hard as convincing her to go out on a date. For her, the