Nigeria's former aviation Minister Femi Fani-Kayode met with the EFCC on Monday and was detained pending sureties and/or money included in an administrative bail. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission actually said he must return the N840M he was given by the presidency to conduct publicity affairs during Nigeria's 2015 elections. Meanwhile the ruling party has never been investigated on how they financed their massive APC campaign. Nigerians are crying foul especially from the opposition party PDP which has maintained it was a witch hunt all along.
Although the former minister had insisted that he got the money to do specific assignments given him by the former President, Vanguard learned that the EFCC asked him to produce the cash or nothing else.
The agency is said to have produced evidence that the former Minister of Finance, Senator Esther Nenadi Usman, who also received N2.5 billion out of the N4 billion that was shared to them, had refunded N140 million, in addition to surrendering two palatial homes in Abuja, to secure her freedom.
The former minister, who was confronted with evidence of how he collected the huge sum drawn from the Central Bank of Nigeria, did not, however, deny receiving the money. A source close to him argued that the money was properly utilised for the intended purpose and that he did not see any justification for asking the former minister to refund the money already utilised. The former minister, who arrived the EFCC headquarters on Formella Street, Wuse 2, at 9:45 am, was still being quizzed at 9 pm yesterday, although sources said he would be granted administrative bail on condition that he returned the money.
Some of the conditions already set for the proposed bail included producing two sureties who must be serving directors in the federal civil service and who must be landlords in Abuja.
But there was no indication at the time of filing the report that any of the conditions had been met. It was likely that the commission would keep the former minister in its custody for sometime, going by similar cases in recent time.
The former minister had decried the attempt by the agency to take him in earlier than Monday and had defied moves by its operatives to arrest him last weekend. The agency was yet to release any information on the former minister last night but Deji Adeyanju, spokesman for PDP released the statement below.
Adeyanju told reporters what happened with former minister saying he was kept in an underground cell:
“When we got to EFCC at around 10am, they kept us waiting for about 2hrs before attending to us. Then a Director met us and said the reason why we invited you is because of campaign funds & another petition against you. Then Fani-Kayode was taken for interrogation. His 2 lawyers & I were allowed to stay with him.”
“The Director of Finance Nenadi Usman asked me to open an account specifically for my Directorate so she can fund the directorate. I did,” Fani-Kayode said afterwards.
“She said she will not give anyone cash for transparency reasons. I opened an account. Monies were transferred into that account.
“The money she transferred to me was to run our directorate. We used all the money for an effective campaign. We did a wonderful job.
“I am very proud I was Director of Media & Publicity of the campaign. At the end, we did a report of all expenses & submitted to the PCO.”
Fani-Kayode was given an administrative bail in which two sureties must be serving directors in government agencies.
With Files from Vanguard
