Ekiti Poll: APC, PDP clash over the movement of ₦18bn cash
The two leading candidates in the election were yesterday locked in a war of words over an alleged movement of ₦18 billion into the state for the election.
Prof. Kolapo Olusola had made the allegation that the money partly sourced from a Northwest state government and $50 million from the $321 million recovered from the Sani Abacha family were moved into the state under cover to facilitate the election of the APC candidate, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.
The allegation was immediately rebuffed by the APC campaign which accused the PDP of extending its theatrics to new levels.
The Olusola campaign speaking through its director, Media and Publicity, Lere Olayinka, at a press conference in Ado Ekiti yesterday said:
“We called you here to intimate the public through your various media organisations of the movement of huge cash by the federal government to Ekiti State for the Saturday election. “Last week Saturday, two bullion vehicles were moved to the Akure Airport to evacuate cash brought from Abuja by a chattered flight.
“The flight landed when it was raining and all staff of the airport were barred from going near the aircraft while the cash was evacuated into the two bullion vehicles.
“After offloading the huge cash, the bullion van first moved to the Ondo State Government House in Akure from where they left for Isan Ekiti, the hometown of the APC governorship candidate, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.”
Olusola claimed that preliminary findings indicated that N2.5bn cash was transferred by the Northwest (Name withheld) to an account in UBA, Wuse Zone 4, Abuja.
“It was withdrawn immediately and moved with a private jet to Akure.
“Also, apart from the ₦2.5 billion, another $50m (about ₦18bn) was taking from the $321m recovered from the late Abacha family.
“Our question is, how can a government that claimed to be fighting corruption released billions of naira from the public coffers for the governorship election of a single State? Where is their fight against corruption?”
Olusola called on Nigerians to note this wanton looting of public fund by the APC government to fund election of its members.
“We must tell Fayemi and his APC that the conscience of the people of Ekiti cannot be purchase and we call on the people of Ekiti to resist the planned use of stolen fund to buy their votes of Saturday,” he added. Olusola also called the attention of the public to alleged intimidation and harassment of PDP members by men of the Department of State Services and policemen.
“Already, Akin Fakorede, an officer of the Federal SARS has been posted to Ekiti State, ostensibly to play the same ignoble role that he played during the Rivers State election.
“Let me say it clearly that no amount of intimidation will scare our people away from the polling units where they will vote for the PDP on Saturday.
“We have the people behind us and they are more than ready to give our candidate their votes on Saturday.”
Responding yesterday, the APC in a statement issued by its spokesman, Wole Olujobi, scoffed at the suggestion, saying the author of the press release was writing from a “hallucinating imagination.”
“Lere Olayinka has a background of integrity deficiency in information dissemination in strict complement with his boss, Governor Ayodele Fayose.
“Across the country and the world audience through social media, Olayinka is renowned for his notoriety to concoct falsehoods and present them to readers as facts.
“Discerning minds will note the lies contained in the story by a single logic that it took Eleka and Olayinka a whole week after the leak of funds movement before they alerted Nigerians about a purported money cargo being offloaded in Akure for Fayemi’s election in Ekiti.
“By this lie from the pit of hell, we know that PDP is trying to paint a picture that it is a comrade-in-crime with APC after Fayose’s 2014 poll fraud funded with the loot from the office of the National Security Adviser.
“It is also to argue that APC bought Ekiti people’s votes after Saturday humiliation of Fayose and Eleka who have set Ekiti people back in their thirst for development.
“Nigerians are expecting the purported pictures showing funds movement to Ekiti State to fund Fayemi’s election, but we know that the pictures cannot be more than the 11 pictures that Fayose threatened to publish to show that President Muhammadu Buhari was on life support machine in the United Kingdom hospital,” Olujobi explained.
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