MANY TROUBLES OF JOHN FASHANU
Presently the name John Fashanu a former premier league footballer is now synonymous with scandal especially as it related to fraud as he move from one scandal to another in fact John Fashanu is the sort of person for whom one life was never going to be enough.
Footballer, businessman, agent, international ambassador, television personality, professional celebrity, friend to pop stars, confidant of presidents… acquitted of match-fixing, accused again of match-fixing. These are just a few of the chapter headings in one of sport’s most intriguing stories
Fashanu was born in London, not Nigeria; however Nigeria did not occupy his thoughts until many years later, when he was looking for alternative career options.
Fashanu and his brother, Justin, were the sons of a Nigerian barrister, who split from their mother when John was four. They were sent to a Barnardo’s home in London, then fostered out to Alf and Betty Jackson and brought up in Attleborough, Norfolk.
After this unconventional childhood, it was inevitable, perhaps, that the brothers would struggle over their sense of identity.
He fought allegations of match fixing in the courts in 1997. He won, but was ordered to pay substantial costs. Typically, he refused to let the controversy dim his ambition and set about rebuilding his career by hosting Gladiators.
After many scandals in United Kingdom, Fashanu had to look farther afield for opportunities and immersed himself in deals in Africa, mainly Nigeria, where he claimed to be their sports ambassador.
Since he came to live in Nigeria like his life in Britain he has been moving from one monumental scandal to another.
Few years back, he got married to the mother of Joseph Yobo’s wife Abigail but the marriage collapsed the same way it was contracted. However, the brouhaha the collapse of the marriage generated was more than the news when they were joined together.
Fashanu, said that the trouble in the marriage has gotten to an irreconcilable level and had to put an end to the three year marriage because it hasn’t been easy. “I have been molested physically and verbally and have no other option than to file for a divorce in an Abuja High Court in Jabi.”
He noted that on one occasion he was attacked with a sword. “She has been telling people that she beat up the cook because she caught her in bed with me. How can that be?” Fashanu explains that on that particular day he was away in Columbia where he had accompanied Prophet TB Joshua for a trip.
“The trip is well documented for people to see. And if truly I was sleeping with my maid then she is not doing her job. But, how can I? When by my position I can afford any in the world if I want. I need her to answer one question, she claims she caught me with two women in bed, where in my house or in her house?”
Fashanu went on to say “I don’t really know how I got myself into this trouble. Her financial demand was too high and I sweat so much to please her. She is a Barrister but she has refused to practice. She practically lives off me, and anytime I fail to meet up with her demand she rains brimstone and fire on me. Since we got married she decided to stay separately, which I obliged and have been paying for the place. It is not supposed to be so; a responsible wife must seek to stay with her husband.
In another scandal, David Lee (aka Robert Clarke aka Ron Christopher), whose real name is David Lebeau, is a private investigator who has worked for the Scientology organization for at least eight years. For the purpose of this report, we shall refer to the investigator as David Lee. After he was handed the project of destroying, Bob Minton, the retired American investment banker, the Scientology organization is hell bent on destroying, Lee’s first task was to research into Minton’s past to find out where he could be vulnerable. Lee soon found out that Minton’s company once did a debt buy back operation for the Central Bank of Nigeria between 1988 – 1993. The private investigator/cum Scientology agent immediately went to work with the hope of digging up something unpleasant about Minton. For three years he compiled a dossier on Minton. These were the years Fashanu was later to claim, he spent his own money investigating those who looted Nigeria’s treasury!
Having recruited Fashanu, thought to be an ideal candidate for the job at the time, Lee devised a media plan in April this year, to give the ”Fashanu Report” the required publicity blitz. He prepared a question and answer document and both men went to work.
Lee ensured that Fashanu was placed under surveillance. Fashanu on the other hand tried to outwit Lee by acquiring new fixed network and mobile phones to make discreet telephone calls.
Lee was at that time on the verge of abandoning Fashanu because the ex footballer was becoming a liability. He felt it was a high wire strategy to pin all his three year work on a man whose credibility was being eroded by the day and confided in Aluko that Fashanu could not be trusted. He said Fashanu was like a loose cannon. Fashanu had approached the Abachas with the aim of extorting money from them claiming the ”Fashanu Report” had information that showed they stole Nigeria’s money. The Abachas wanted Fashanu to substantiate his claims, but the former footballer never went past that stage because he never had that information in the first instance. Fashanu had also ”recruited” Ned Nwoko as someone from the Presidency who could facilitate the prosecution of Minton. Lee was to find out from his secret taping of Fashanu and Nwoko,that Nwoko was on his own and was not working for the Presidency
And recently, he was arrested and put in an overcrowded prison cell in Abuja over a N9.5m land scam which he got himself involved. spent two days locked up as officers investigated claims he acted as a fixer in a scam to sell plots that were not for sale.
He was arrested at his home on the Sun City Estate, in the capital Abuja, and taken in on suspicion of “criminal conspiracy”, detectives said.
It is alleged that earlier this year the former I’m a Celeb favourite acted for a friend looking to buy land.
The friend claims he was told by Fashanu, 54, of two contacts who would help with buying “forgotten lands” – plots owned by chiefs that the state were unaware of.
He was allegedly given £23,000 in cash to fix the deal with his “boys”. But when the new “owner” went to claim his land, it is alleged he found it not for sale and not in the hands of local chiefs.
