By Mo Isa
During an interactive session with media executives on Tuesday, Ola Olukoyede, the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), disclosed that a former governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, allegedly moved a sum of $720,000 from the state’s treasury a few days before leaving office in January.
Olukoyede revealed that the ex-governor used the funds to pay his child’s school fees in advance.
“In a poor state like Kogi State, and you want me to close my eyes to that under the guise that I am being used? Used by whom at this stage of my life?”
Although Olukoyede did not explicitly mention Bello’s name, he lamented that the money was withdrawn from the “poor” Kogi State.
His words: “A sitting governor, because he knows he’s going, and moved money directly from government to Bureau De Change, used it to pay the child’s school fees in advance in dollars; the total is over $720,000 in anticipation that he was going to leave government house.”
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Olukoyede also noted that he had invited the former governor to address the charges against him at the commission, but Bello declined and requested that the EFCC interrogators travel to his village in Kogi State to question him.
“I said ‘Okay, if that is your fear, I would allow you to pass you through my own gate and accord you that respect and invite my operators and interrogate you in my own office.’”
The EFCC boss explained that Bello cited fear of harassment as the reason he couldn’t visit the commission’s office.
Olukoyede further disclosed that he had inherited Bello’s alleged fraud case from his predecessor and had recovered about N120 billion and secured over 1,600 convictions since assuming office.
He emphasised the need for the EFCC and its institution to survive, saying, “So many people, we have wiped tears off their eyes, people that they have swindled in their millions.”