Obanikoro’s confessions unsettle Fayose

Ekiti Governor Ayodele Fayose is feeling uncomfortable with the voluntary return of wanted ex-Minister Musiliu Obanikoro to Nigeria, especially as the PDP arrowhead has beun confessing to the EFCC grilling him over his role in the Ekiti election in 2014.

But Fayose said he will not be distracted by Mr. Obanikoro’s reported confessions that he transferred N2.3billion to him from the Office of the National Security Adviser to fund his 2014 governorship election.

The governor, in a statement on Wednesday signed by his Special Adviser on Public Communication and New Media, Lere Olayinka, said the report was a plot by the Federal Government and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to implicate him “at all cost.”

Obanikoro has been in EFCC custody since Monday, answering questions on allegations of corruption and receipt of funds from the Office of the National Security Adviser without contract awards.

He skipped out of Nigeria in 2015 when allegations mounted that he facilitated the disbursement of the funds to Mr. Fayose in the build up to the 2014 election in Ekiti through Biodun Agbele, an associate of the governor.

Obanikoro, according to the Punch, has owned up to the EFCC on the transfers.

Fayose, however, dismissed the report, saying it was the commission’s usual media trial.

“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,” he said.

“We have gone past 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.”

According to him, 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.

“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,” the governor said.

He said the EFCC should also beam its searchlights on the funding of APC elections.

“Since we are now in the era in which financial assistance from Nigerians to fund elections is being criminalised, the international community, especially those funding EFCC must insist that the commission probes the funding of APC elections before further funds are released to the commission.”

Fayose has been having a running battle with the commission.

He vowed two days ago the EFCC will not arrest anybody under his watch in Ekiti since the agency now terrorises opposition elements.