Kogi Govt Gives EFCC 48-Hour Ultimatum To Apologise Over Alleged N20bn Bailout Fund

Kogi State government has given the EFCC 48 hours to retract the statement posted on its Facebook Account on November 19 or the state would take a legal action against it.

The Kogi State Government has described as falsehood the statement credited to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that it has returned N19.3 billion bail-out funds allegedly “hidden” by the state to the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Briefing the press in Lagos, the commissioner for Information, Kingsley Fanwo, said the whole saga was, “a hatchet job conceived by politicians and implemented by an EFCC under Abdulrasheed Bawa leadership to tarnish the rising political profile of Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello and bring him to disrepute and lower him in the estimation of right-thinking members of the society and portray him as a corrupt person.’’

The commissioner explained that those maligning the personality of the governor had tried other anti-graft agencies without luck, but resorted to using EFCC that presented itself as a willing tool to discredit Governor Bello.

Fanwo said, “The EFCC cares not for how this fake news will affect the fortunes of the state, shake investor confidence and the possibility of setting the people of Kogi State against the government of Kogi State once it is able to satisfy the desires of its paymasters and political allies.

“Let it be known that the Kogi State government refutes every bit of these false allegations being peddled by the EFCC. The Kogi State government had disbursed its bailout loans for the purpose of which it was granted as of October 2019.

“The Kogi State government does not currently operate or maintain a fixed-deposit account with Sterling Bank.

“There is no mandate letter from the Kogi State Government to open account number 0073572696 with Sterling Bank. Sterling Bank account 0073572696 is an internal mirror account operated by the bank for purposes of managing the Kogi State Salary Bailout facility,” Fanwo added.

The EFCC in a 13-paragraph affidavit in support of an exparte application has stated that it received a credible and direct intelligence which led to the tracing of the fund reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities of accounts domiciled in Sterling Bank.

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