The untold story of Roli Bode-George, the new NDLEA boss

MRS. Roli Bode-George, the newly appointed Director-General of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), will be thanking the day she decided to dump the other men in her life and stuck to Chief Bode George as her new husband.

This is because her dalliance with the 69 year-old politician has not only given her, her third child, it has also given her two federal appointments within four years!

Mrs. Bode-George was first appointed a member of National Population Commission (NPC), in November 2011, to represent Lagos State.  Her appointment to NPC then generated a lot of furore between the Federal Government and Lagos State government which felt slighted that it was not consulted before she was appointed to represent the state in the commission.  The Federal Government ignored the complaint of Lagos State government and retained her as a member of the NPC.  She had barely spent two and a half years there, when she was appointed the Director-General of Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), on Thursday, June 19, 2014 by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Her appointment again generated another round of furore from a lot of people who believed that her appointment was not because of her past record of service either in public domain or in private enterprise but because of being the wife of Chief Bode George, a prominent PDP chieftain.

Despite this outcry by Nigerians, Mrs. Roli Bode-George officially took over as the Director-General of NDLEA on Friday, June 27, 2014.  With this appointment, Mrs. Roli George is considered by many as the luckiest of Chief Bode George’s wives.  Except, if we are going to consider the first ladyship of Mrs. Feyisetan George, his first wife, when he was the military governor of Ondo State between 1988 and 1990.

Chief Bode George certainly was not the first husband or the only man that has been associated with Roli.  She first came into limelight as a model, particularly when she modelled for Elegance Ankara.  Her first marriage was to one Adeniyi, a businessman whom she had her first two children for.

ENCOMIUM Weekly gathered that her marriage to Adeniyi packed up when he turned her to a punching bag.  She sought solace from Pastor Chris Okotie of the Household of God Church, who did not only provide her and her children accommodation but also allegedly dated her.

Her romantic dalliance with Pastor Chris Okotie became public knowledge then when she had to cry out that Pastor Chris Okotie was holding on to some of her property after he drove her and her children out of the apartment he rented for her. Tongues were also wagging then that Roli had romantic relationship with late Engr. Funsho Williams, whom she served as a personal assistant in Network Alliance, his political platform.

It was while working for Funsho Williams that she met Bode George, who had just assumed the leadership of PDP in Lagos State then.  There were insinuations then that Roli was the cause of the friction between Chief Bode George and Funsho Williams, which later caused the latter his ministerial appointment that was eventually given to Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe, the former Minister of Works.

ENCOMIUM Weekly was at Lagoon Restaurant, Ozumba Mbadiwe Street, Victoria Island, Lagos sometime in 2002, where Roli launched her NGO called Women in Politics in Nigeria (WIN).  The three men, that is, Pastor Chris Okotie, late Engr. Funsho Williams and Chief Bode George, were not only conspicuously present at the launch of the NGO but also donated generously.

It became public knowledge sometime in 2005, that Bode George and Roli have become husband and wife when Roli was the chief hostess at the wedding of Bode George’s daughter in Lagos.  It was at that wedding which had Governors Rasheed Ladoja, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Minister of Works then, Adeseye Ogunlewe in attendance that Roli took the shine off Kaine George to the delight of Feyisetan, the mother of the bride.  And sometime in 2008, she had a baby boy for Chief Bode George.

Many are of the opinion that Roli’s appointment is a sort of compensation for the role she played during Bode George’s incarceration at Kirikiri Maximum Prisons, Apapa, Lagos, between October 26, 2009 and 2011, when he was released.  Throughout Bode George’s stay in Kirikiri, Roli was going there virtually every day to provide him food and his other needs.

Roli, a graduate of Geography from University of Benin, Edo State and Federal Government College, Ijanikin, Lagos, where she did her secondary education is the sixth known wife of Chief Bode George.  She displaced Mrs. Kaine George, the owner of Out of Africa, a fashion outfit.  Mrs. Kaine George did not have any child for Bode George.

There was also June George, a former secretary at the defunct Owena Bank, Ondo State.  She had two children for him, a boy and a girl before she relocated abroad.  June George was the one who took Bode George to court for not compensating her after keeping his money and property in her name for him.  The case which was handled by His Lordship, Justice Bode Rhode-Vivour then at Lagos High Court had to be settled out of court.

We also had Roseline Nwagbara, the youngest wife of late Chief Erhabor Emokpayi, the Nigerian sculptor that designed the FESTAC mask.  She had a child for Chief Bode George.  Another wife of Chief Bode George who has also been displaced by Roli is Bisi.  Bisi was once married to a bosom friend of Chief Bode George.  Surprisingly, however, when she divorced her husband, it was Bode George’s home she moved to.  Today, she has a child for him.

Roli has, however, not been able to displace Mrs. Feyisetan George, the first legal wife of Chief Bode George.  There seems to be synergy between Mrs. Feyisetan George and Roli.  From what we gathered, she (Roli) accords her a lot of respect.  Mrs. Feyisetan George is the mother of the first three children of Chief Bode George.

If there is anything the marriage of Roli to Chief Bode George has done to her, it’s the fact that it has reduced her appearance in social parties.  Mrs. Roli Bode-George used to be a social butterfly before her marriage to Chief Bode George.  Her friends with whom she attended parties then included Funlola Oshunsade, a niece of Otunba Mike Adenuga and Lawunmi Bibilari.

-TOLANI ABATTI