Senate President David Mark has denied giving music superstar Tuface (real name Innocent Idibia) a car as wedding gift.

A story about Senator Mark giving his Idoma kinsman a N47m Ferrari during Tuface and Annie’s wedding ceremony in Dubai last weekend had gone viral yesterday, with many commentators berating Mark, whom they accused of double standards having failed to rally the Nigerian Senate to approve a bill to pay the country’s jobless graduates N20,000 monthly.

However, reacting swiftly through his Special Adviser, Media & Publicity, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, the Senate President vehemently denied the “wild stories.”
“Senator Mark did not visit Dubai for Tuface wedding rather he attended the 128th Inter parliamentary Union (IPU) conference currently holding in Quito, Ecuador. He was also not represented at Mr. Idibia’s wedding. It is also instructive to state that the President of the Senate, Senator Mark, did not make a car donation of any kind to Tuface before departing Nigeria for Ecuador neither did he purchase nor send any car to Dubai as a wedding gift for the musician or his wife,” the statement said, asking: “Who made the donation on behalf of the President of the Senate?”
It dismissed the allegation as “wicked, ridiculous and irresponsible.”

News Express recalls that Chief Godswill Akpabio, Governor of Akwa Ibom, the home state of Tuface’s bride, Annie Macaulay, had incurred the anger of Nigerians when he donated an a Prado SUV jeep to the couple during their March 8 traditional marriage and sponsored 20 relatives of Annie to the Dubai wedding.

•Photo: Annie Tuface Idibia relishing the Prado Jeep wedding gift from Governor Akpabio.