The
popular OPC National Coordinator has finally broken his silence on the
reported allegations of collecting huge sum of money from the immediate
past president and even from the late Libya president.
Gani Adams speaking to newsmen
In a statement made available to DailyPost on Monday, National
leader of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Dr. Gani Adams, has denied
media reports that he collected money from former President, Goodluck
Jonathan and the late President of Libya, Mummar Ghaddaffi.
On the alleged report that he collected N9 billion from Jonathan:
"This particular allegation is particularly laughable. That
somebody would believe this story is not only a woeful display of
ignorance, but also pathetic. Despite the poor state of the nation’s
economy, the sum of N9billion is a huge amount that I am not sure that,
even each gubernatorial candidates of the PDP got from the presidency to
prosecute their campaigns. So, while it can be pardoned that somebody
came up with the story, it is surely unpardonable and gullible of
anybody to believe it.
"However, for a better understanding of the source of the
story, you will recall that it was the Minister of Information, Lai
Mohammed, who as the spokesperson of the APC at the time, came up with
the allegation that the former president gave me N9 billion.
"Mohammed’s allegation at the time was that we received the
money as payment for the pipeline surveillance contract. He said the
money was for us to prosecute the election. His allegation was shortly
after our protest against the former INEC chairman’s distribution of
PVCs, which we felt was skewed in favour of the north at the time. And
to the glory of God, all the fears we raised during the protest were
proved during the elections. Mohammed’s allegations have also been
proved to be false."
On the allegation that he received the sum of $22m from the late Ghaddafi:
"All my life, I have never set my foot on the soil of Libya, neither did I meet the late Ghadaffi or his agent at any time.
"Let me state here that when this issue first came up, I took
it upon myself to write a petition to the State Security Service (SSS),
informing them of the allegation and pleading with the Service to help
investigate its source in order to get to the root of the matter.
"As I speak with you, I am still awaiting the response to my
petition. Having said that, I want to once again plead with the SSS to,
as a matter of urgency, make sure that these people who have alleged me
of this grave crime are made to prove the source of their allegation,
and if they are not able to do so, should be made to face prosecution
for their actions. It is important to explain this, because, by my
understanding, it is more than four years now that the Libyan leader
died.
"They should explain what the money is meant for and how it was
sent to me. Such huge amount of money cannot be transferred to an
individual secretly, so they need to do more explanation on how I
allegedly received this money.
"I am not a war mercenary, and I am not sure that Ghadaffi was a
Father Xmas who would want to give out such money as a gift. Our
organization is a peaceful socio-cultural group, with the sole aim of
promoting the cultural heritage of Yoruba race.
On the claims that he received N1.6bn from former Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro:
"To the best of my knowledge, the last time that I saw the
former minister was when he accompanied the former president to the
National Confab during the inaugural speech by the former president."
No comments:
Post a Comment