The outgoing governor of Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has written the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, rejecting the commission’s request that he should report on September 20 for questioning over monies allegedly traced to his account.
Fayose said the date suggested by the commission despite his letter indicating readiness to appear on October 16 was borne out hatred and persecution.
The governor suggested to EFCC to send its investigators to meet him in his office on September 20 if it was so much in a hurry that its investigation could not wait till October 16, 2018 – the first day after the expiration of his tenure.
“Without prejudice to Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution, I will be willing to answer questions from your team of investigators should they be willing to meet me in my office in Ado Ekiti on the 20th of September, 2018 indicated in the EFCC’s letter dated September 13, 2018,” he said.
Fayose, according to a press release issued on Tuesday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, said the letter written by the EFCC to the Customs and other agencies, directing them to put him on their watch list and arrest him if he attempted to leave Nigeria before the expirtation of his tenure raised serious question about the impartiality, independence or neutrality of the commission.
Reminding the EFCC that he had on December 19, 2007, willingly presented himself for investigation at its Lagos office after his first tenure, Fayose added that there was nothing new or strange in his September 10 letter, which he said, had been received and treated in a bad taste.
The September 14 letter read, “As a responsible citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who currently enjoys immunity under Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution, it would amount to a breach of the constitution which I swore to uphold if I appear in your office on any date earlier than 16th October, 2018. If done otherwise, it will set a wrong precedent for the constitutional institution that I represent.
