FG Sent Powerful Delegation To Burial of Gitto, Italian Donor of Controversial Church to President Jonathan’s Otuoke

Late Domencio Gitto and the controversial church donated to Pres. Jonathan

 

By SaharaReporters, New York 

 

SaharaReporters has authoritatively learned that the Nigerian government secretly sent a powerful delegation, led by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Pius Anyim Anyim, to the burial of Domenico Gitto, the Italian contractor who last March sensationally donated a 2500-seat church to President Goodluck Jonathan’s hometown of Otuoke.
Mr. Gitto, who was managing director of Gitto Construzioni Generali Nigeria Limited, died on June 26 at the age of 52.  He was buried in Italy on July 2 in Falcone, in the Sicilian region of the province of Messina.
The Nigerian government was heavily represented at the topmost levels in Falcone, as though it was a state burial.  Mr. Anyim was accompanied by several Ministers, including the Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, and the Minister for the Niger Delta, Elder Godsday Orubebe, in whose office Mr. Gitto reportedly fell ill before he was later pronounced dead at the National Hospital in Abuja.
Also in the presidential entourage were the former governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, and the current Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio. Former Senator Iyabo Obasanjo was also seen at the burial, representing her father.
At the commissioning of the church, Mr. Jonathan himself explained the large gift to a complaint he had made to Mr. Gitto about the dilapidated nature of his village church.  Mr. Gitto, he said, then promised to build and donate a new church that would be befitting of Otuoke.
That set off a firestorm in which critics said that the donation not only breached the provisions of the constitution, but that it also suggested inappropriate relationships between the private contractor and top government officials, notably Mr. Jonathan.
Those criticisms were fobbed off by the presidency, but the top-drawer delegation to the Italian’s burial may well renew the controversy.  Our source in Abuja said that the delegation comprised officials who may have been involved in shady business dealings with Mr. Gitto’s Construzioni Generali Nigeria Limited before his death.
It is unclear why Mr. Jonathan would have approved such a high-level delegation, paid for from the coffers of the federal government, for a private burial.  Mr. Gitto was known to have accumulated a lot of wealth as well as debt during his operations in Nigeria.

Our source said that Mr. Gitto principally made a lot of money from contacts and contracts from the office of the Secretary to the Federal Government and the Ministry of the Niger Delta.   His company had a huge contract to construct the Akwa Ibom section of the East-West highway.  He was also known to have been making a lot of money in Akwa Ibom State where, among others, Construzioni Generali Nigeria constructed the runway of the Akwa Ibom International Airport.
It is not known how much the federal government spent on its high-powered delegation to attend the burial of a private foreign citizen.

source: sahara reporters