Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has dismissed the reports that former Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro admitted to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, that he (Fayose) received fund from the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, under Sambo Dasuki, to fund his election in 2014.
Obanikoro, who is undergoing interrogation at the EFCC headquarters, reportedly told the anti-corruption agency that he gave the sum of N2.3bn to Fayose, in the run-up to the Ekiti State governorship election in 2014.
However, in a statement by his media aide Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose insisted that the his election was “legitimately funded”, saying that “when we get to the bridge, we will cross it.
He advised the federal government to pay more attention to the hunger and suffering of the Nigerian people, rather than looking for ways to implicate him.
“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,” the governor stated.
Fayose said his response to Obanikoro’s claim was just to fulfil all righteousness.
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,” he stated.
The governor wondered why EFCC was focusing only the campaigns of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and overlooking the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
“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 said.