Obanikoro says N784 m spent to prevent bombing in Lagos

Former Defence Minister Musliu Obanikoro confessed Wednesday to the EFCC that he spent N784 million, of the N4.6 billion he got from the office of the National Security Adviser, on anti-Boko Haram campaign in Lagos.

The campaign came after a bomb went off in the Apapa area of Lagos, and ex-NSA Sambo Dasuki was worried about a repeat.

He had earlier admitted to giving over N2.1 billion to Ayo Fayose and N1.7 billion to Iyiola Omisore, both PDP’s guber candidates in Ekiti and Osun respectively in 2014.

Obanikoro has been in the agency’s detention since Monday, when he turned himself in after almost a year of self-exile in America.

He was alleged in 2015 to have spear-headed a massive rigging and bribery campaign in the Ekiti and Osun guber elections in 2014.

In the anti-terrorist media campaign in Lagos, N200 million, he said, was spent on surveillance, and same amount went was spent by Sylva McNamara’s owner Taiwo Kareem, according to reports.

The company has links to Obanikoro’s sons– Babajide and Gbolahan.

Obanikoro said the money was paid into the personal account of Omisore and other accounts the former senator brought.

The EFCC have already identified the banks where those transactions occurred.

He alleged that out of a total of N4.685bn paid into the account of Sylva Mcnamara, N3.880bn was paid to Fayose and Omisore

It was stated that the funds were paid through cash and bank transfers.

The operative quoted Obanikoro as having told the EFCC interrogators that he handed over the dollar equivalent of the funds to Fayose in the presence of an APC cross-carpeter Tope Aluko and some PDP leaders.

Last year, Aluko came on the air to blew up the secret of the funding and rigging his former party PDP resorted to win the 2014 guber election.

He was however sued, and a warrant of arrest issued on him by Ekiti magistrate court while he was in Abuja making statements to the Department of State Security.