Ayodele Fayose, governor of Ekiti state, has questioned the whereabouts of the “billions of dollars” recovered by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari from looters.
In a statement released on Sunday, Fayose dismissed repeated claims that massive corruption in the regime of Goodluck Jonathan, former president, is responsible for the poor economic state of the country under Buhari.
“It is only a lazy worker that would complain about his tools,” he said through Idowu Adelusi, his chief press secretary.
“President Barack Obama, despite what he inherited from the Republican administration, still made the difference.
“The problem we have is not about the vehicle, but the driver. Let them give account of what they have realised as revenue, as recovered funds and the billions of dollars found in people’s houses all over the world. We want to know what has become of the funds.”
He boasted that he could not be worn out by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) because he has “God” in his corner.
The anti-graft agency is investigating him for allegedly receiving money from Sambo Dasuki, former national security adviser (NSA), through Musiliu Obanikoro, ex-minister of defence. However, Fayose challenged the agency to publish details of his frozen accounts with Zenith Bank.
“What I am facing in Ekiti is a war of the elite and incidentally, it is the masses that vote people into office,” he said.
“We know some failed Ekiti politicians who now resume daily in EFCC office to concoct stories and give same to their commissioned newspapers to publish. It is only one or two newspapers that always have their so-called exclusive stories and they follow the same pattern.
“The EFCC is only engaged in mind games. They think they can wear me out, that is not possible as God is on my side because I stand for the truth. EFCC has not told Nigerians how money was wired to me. They must be responsible to do investigation that would not be a media issue. What the EFCC and their APC collaborators are trying to do is to set the people of the state against me and they have failed.
“In my two accounts that they have frozen, I have N300 million in the fixed deposit one and N82 million in the other. Both accounts and my properties were duly declared in my Asset Declaration Form. They are treading the same 2006 path and they will fail woefully by the grace of God. What they did in 2006, the Supreme Court declared it illegal and I came back to office exactly eight years after. It means one of us lied and was mischievous
“We cannot all be in the APC. If we are, then we are no longer practising democracy. There must be opposition and that is to keep those in government on their toes, but if you now make silencing the opposition as your main programme, then you are short-changing the people.
“The people are hungry; they are ravaged by poverty and what you think is the best step to take is to kill the voice of the opposition. If the situation was this bad, the PDP would have been removed from office long time ago.
“After the APC leaders failed to stop my inauguration, get me impeached, they know that they will still lose again in 2018. What they are trying to do is to create a wedge between me and the people of the state who love me.
“As far as I am concerned, their project is dead on arrival. The voice of the people is the voice of God,” he stated.
Eze Afrika
