Wole Balogun, Ado Ekiti
A media aide to former Ekiti governor Ayo Fayose has alleged that Governor Kayode Fayemi is on a vendetta mission with his decision to bring petitions of alleged financial mismanagement against some heads of public institutions in the state.
The state government through Chief Press Secretary to Governor Fayemi, Yinka Oyebode at the weekend said its probe panels had unearthed sundry fraud allegedly perpetrated in such institutions of the such as Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti (EKSU), College of Education, Ikere Ekiti, College of Science and Health Technology, Ijero, Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado Ekiti (EKSUTH) and the Broadcasting Service of Ekiti State (BSES).
The government hinted that heads of the institutions, who included Vice Chancellor of EKSU, Prof Samuel Oye Bandele, Provost of the College of Education, Prof Mojisola Oyarekua, former Director General of BSES, Olayinka, Chief Medical Director of EKSUTH, Dr Kolawole Ogundipe and ex-Provost of College of Health Science and Technology, Ijero Ekiti, Pastor David Ojo, may soon be facing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
But in a swift reaction at the weekend, Fayose’s aide Lere Olayinka said: “They (Fayemi’s panels) should not wait, they can go to the EFCC today and sleep there till Monday to submit their petitions against us, I am here, i will be waiting. l operated the BSES in consonance with management positions. There was no money spent during my tenure that wasn’t audited both internally and externally.
“When I got to the place, it was using 30,000 litres of diesel per month, I reduced it to 15,000 litres in four months because 30,000 litres was fraud. lt was under Fayemi government that N15_000 litres of diesel was being stolen on monthly basis for four years.
“When I got to BSES, I met a debt of over N15 million, I paid most of them, by the time the corporation was shut down in July last year, we had about N1.6 million in the corporation’s UBA account. And we were only owing less than N3 million for diesel.
“So, if they want me to come to the EFCC, l will do so but Fayemi should also not forget that whenever I am going to the EFCC, I will go with the documents of reports by the state’s panel of inquiry that indicted him of sundry misappropriation of funds of Ekiti State, I will present that report publicly to the EFCC and see whether the anti-graft commission would not look into that too,” he said.
Alleging further that panels of the state governor have not done their job properly, Olayinka, who is also the media director of the Atiku/Obi presidential campaign council in the state, said: “I know their plan is to keep me out of the public, to shut me up and not allow me to be on ground at this tome of elections, but I am not afraid of such plan. I am on ground here.
“What Fayemi is doing is clear vendetta and most of those panels he set up to probe the state agencies had operated based on hear says, especially those who looked into our dealings in the BSES.
“For example, in their report the panel alleged that I took away official car of the corporation. and because Governor Fayemi is also behaving like a diaspora governor who doesn’t really know what is happening in Ekiti. He asked his CSO to recover the car when they can easily go and find out about it from the office of the Secretary of the State Government or the office of general administration. And if they has done that, they would have known that the car in question has been monetized to me and that I have made part payment.
“As at June last year, I had paid N1.9 million out of the N3 million I had to pay on that car. The government is still owing me four months salary and if that was paid, I would have paid N400,000 because I pay N100,000 per month for the car. That would have made my balance on the car to be N700,000. I have also not been paid my severance, furniture allowances and if what I am owing on the car is removed from what the government is owing me as unpaid allowances, the state government will still be owing me over N3 million.
“I am not the only person official cars were monetized to. We are many and we have been paying. There are information about our activities in the files in the office of Secretary to the State Government and the Fayemi ought to have checked all these records about the agencies at the general administration office first instead of setting up the panels to probe. This is why I didn’t appear before the panel when they invited me.
“When they say that money was stolen in the BSES, i laughed because the account of that corporation was never audited , I started the audit during my tenure and did it up to 2017. If the EFCC invites me today, I will be there at their office in Abuja and I will also go along with documents of reports by the panel of inquiry that indicted Fayemi on his misappropriation of Ekiti State funds. It will be an opportunity for me to present those indicting documents against Fayemi too,” he said.