Currently out on bail, Senator Obanikoro has confessed to having given Ekiti State governor Ayo Fayose a sum of N2.3bn (£6m) in the run-up to the states governorship elections which took place in 2014. Senator Obanikoro was accused of using state funds to try and influence the outcome of the state governorship elections.
After his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost the 2015 elections, senator Obanikoro fled to the US but after the EFCC indicted him, he returned to Nigeria. Following his return, the former minister returned N100m to the EFCC with a promise to return another N480m and has subsequently been granted bail.
However, he may now face fresh charges as recent investigations showed that Senator Obanikoro received N400m from a former finance minister Senator Nenadi Usman, who was the director of finance of the Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation during the build-up to the 2015 elections. According to one EFCC source, sometime in 2015, Senator Usman sent the money to Senator Obanikoro through a proxy.
“As part of investigations into the billions disbursed by Nenadi Usman during the build-up to the 2015 elections, we interrogated a suspect at our office. Then the suspect told us that she handed over N400m to Obanikoro in the presence of some PDP members, so he will be invited to the Lagos office of the EFCC to tell his own side of the story,” the EFCC source added.
According to the EFCC, in March, about N3.145bn was mysteriously transferred from the account of the Office of the National Security Adviser (Onsa), domiciled in the Central Bank of Nigeria, to the account of Joint Trust Dimensions, a company allegedly owned by Senator Usman. She was said to have transferred N840m to the account of the director of publicity of the organisation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode at Zenith Bank on February 19, 2015, while she allegedly gave a former finance minister Chief Olu Falae, N100m on the instructions of PDP stalwart Chief Anthony Anenih.
A former Imo State governor Achike Udenwa and a former minister of state for foreign affairs Viola Onwuliri, got N350m in two tranches too. Senator Usman and Chief Fani-Kayode have since been arraigned before the Federal High Court in Lagos and their accounts frozen while Governor Udenwa and Chief Falae may be arraigned soon.
Apart from the Onsa fund, Senator Usman allegedly disbursed a separate N23bn to various states during the build-up to the elections. This money allegedly emanated from a former minister of petroleum resources Diezani Alison-Madueke.
According to the EFCC, the money, which was $115m but converted to N23bn, was alleged to have been kickbacks from some dubious oil contractors involved in oil theft. So far, the EFCC has grilled about 16 former governors and ministers over the alleged N23bn Diezani sleaze.
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