On a day Governor Ayodele Fayose declared his
presidential ambition, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
yesterday swooped on key officials of his government. Ekiti State Commissioner
for Finance, Chief Toyin Ojo, and the State Accountant General, Mrs. Yemisi
Owolabi, were taken into custody by the anti-graft agency. The commissioner and
accountant general were arrested in Abuja.
The two were in the nation’s capital for the monthly
Joint Accounts Allocation Committee (JAAC) meeting. New Telegraph learnt that
the Ekiti State government officials were arrested over alleged misapplication
of N7 billion bailout fund.
“The officials have explanation to give on the use of
bailout fund the state government got. Specifically, we are probing the use of
N7 billion diversion. There are questions to ask. What happened to the huge sum
is our major concern.
“From our investigation so far, we believe that a sum of
N7 billion was diverted by the state officials,” a source at the anti-graft
agency told New Telegraph. The Head of Media and Publicity of the EFCC, Mr.
Wilson Uwujaren, who confirmed the arrest, said the top officials were arrested
after their failure to honour previous invitations. According to Uwujaren, Ojo
and Owolabi will face interrogation over the alleged misuse of bailout funds by
the state government.
“Ekiti State Commissioner for Finance and the Account
General are currently in the custody of the EFCC. They were picked up on
Thursday (yesterday) following their refusal to honour previous invitations for
interrogation in relation to pending investigation on the misuse of bailout
funds by the Ayodele Fayose administration,” Uwujaren said in a statement.
Fayose has kicked against the arrest. The governor said the antigraft agency is
just chasing shadows with the arrest of the state officials. Speaking on the
receipt of the bailout, Fayose said: “Ekiti got the least of the bailout fund.
Ekiti got only N4.7 billion but the state’s wage bill is N2.6 billion while the
local government area is N2.4 billion.
This automatically amounts to the fact that if the
bailout fund is used only and strictly for salaries, it could not have paid
salaries of both state and local governments’ workers for one month. “May I say
to you again very carefully, I don’t appropriate money in Ekiti, rather I give
the receipt of our allocation to the labour leaders. I have a standing
committee of the labour leaders and I gave that right to share money in Ekiti.
So they are only chasing shadow.
“The labour leaders came out and told them that our
governor did not divert the bailout money. Our governor gave out the bailout
fund to appropriate. So coming to arrest state officials simply because I
declared today, you are wasting your time.”
He accused the antigraft agency of breaching the law with
the arrest of the commissioner and accountant general. His words: “I want to
say expressly that there is a court order against the EFCC that says no
official of the Ekiti State must be invited by EFCC. EFCC wrote a petition
against the judge that gave that judgement.
They wrote that the file should be resent to the Chief
Judge to be transferred to Akure and it was thrown out in Akure. “EFCC is busy
acting against the rule of law. For us to fight corruption, allegation is not
enough. Stories are also not enough.
To fight corruption, you must allow due process, you must
respect court judgement.” Speaking on Channels TV last night, Fayose said the
arrest of the state officials won’t deter him from pursuing his presidential
ambition. “So, arresting my Accountant General and the Commissioner for Finance
today is shameful. Why did it coincide with my declaration? You are intolerant
of my opposition, and I cannot be perturbed by that. Even my predecessors have
been accused of corrupt practices with documents sent to the EFCC, yet nobody
has invited him one day.
“I can’t be bothered by their strategies and
conspiracies. It is a matter of time. Accusing someone of corruption does not
make anybody corrupt. If that is your strategy against 2019, you will equally
fail, because anybody charged to court is assumed innocent until the court says
otherwise.
Don’t come and tell us stories. You know what the
problems are,” he said. Meanwhile, the state government has described the
arrest as “further demonstration of the anti-corruption agency’s
irresponsibility.” The state government, in a statement issued by Special
Assistant to Governor Fayose on Public Communications and New Media, Lere
Olayinka, said: “The EFCC is obviously living up to its status as the
attack-dog of the All Progressives Congress (APC) government, but Ekiti State
government under Governor Ayodele Fayose cannot be intimidated.
“It is obvious that the hawks around President Muhammadu
Buhari are afraid of Governor Fayose’s declaration to contest the presidential
election in 2019, hence the usual panicky measure of arresting government
officials in Ekiti on the day of his declaration, with the view to embark on
another round of media trial against the governor and his government.”
The government challenged the EFCC to tell Nigerians what
has been done to the loads of petitions written against the immediate past APC
government of Dr. Kayode Fayemi, asking: “What has the EFCC done to those
involved in the grass-cutting scam and the $43 million Ikoyi scam?” Meanwhile,
the move by the EFCC to get the Appeal Court to reverse itself on earlier
ruling dismissing the commission’s application to get a stay of execution on
the order to de-activate Fayose’s two bank accounts suffered yet another
setback yesterday, as the court adjourned the case to November 7. Justice
Hammad Belgore of the Appeal Court, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State capital, gave EFCC’s
failure to serve the bank, as second respondent a notice of hearing of the date
of the motion, as reason for the adjournment.
Source: newtelegraphonline.com
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