GOVERNOR Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, yesterday, accused the Presidency of wasting valuable time in a desperate plot to get him at all costs saying that the schemes would not in any way put food on the table of Nigerians.
Reacting to ‘revelations’ by the erstwhile Minister of state, defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro that he passed on funds from the Office of the National Security Adviser to support Fayose’s 2014 election, the governor charged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC to equally beam its searchlight on the campaign funds of the All Progressives Congress, APC. The development came as sources said that, the EFCC, may put Obanikoro to very stringent bail conditions. The return of Obanikoro to the country and the questioning by the EFCC might also have reopened fresh issues within the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP over the utilization of the money. Stakeholders in the PDP were about the time of the election on edge over claims and counter-claims that the money was not appropriately shared and distributed as earmarked. Even more, there were claims yesterday that the bank charges were not paid by the receivers. Obanikoro returned to Nigeria on Monday after many months away and proceeded straight to the offices of the EFCC. He was reported to have disclosed that he handed over the sum of $5.37 million to Fayose for the election. Besides Governor Fayose, others who reacted to the development yesterday, included the Ekiti State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Second Republic lawmaker, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, and erstwhile Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Abubakar Tsav.
In his reaction, Governor Fayose in a statement issued by his special assistant on new media, Mr. Lere Olayinka described the latest development as a plot by the presidency and the APC to divert the attention of Nigerians from the nagging problems of poverty and the suffering in the land. While calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to focus on good governance, he said: “This project ‘Fayose must be implicated at all cost’ will definitely not put food on the tables of Nigerians, and for all I care, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and its collaborators can keep running from pillar to post while I keep delivering good governance to Ekiti and its people.”
Dismissing reports that Obanikoro confessed that he passed on money to him, he said: “We have gone pass this stage of media trial, EFCC should rather keep its gun powder dry when we get to the bridge, we will cross it. They said more than this in the 2006 poultry scam blackmail, despite that, I am the governor today.” Noting that his reaction was to fulfil all righteousness and not leave anyone in doubt, he said: “those who arranged the dramatic and compromised return of Senator Obanikoro to Nigeria obviously did so in continuation of their project ‘Fayose must be implicated at all cost’, but I am not bothered because my election was legitimately funded. “However, if this is why they are intimidating judges and the judiciary, it won’t work as far as my own matter is concerned as no one can play God. “As far as I am concerned, I am busy here in Ekiti attending to the welfare and well-being of my people. I won’t be distracted.”