Fani-Kayode: Looters list incomplete without names of Buhari, Osinbajo

Femi Fani-Kayode, former minister of aviation, says the list of looters is incomplete without the names of President Muhamadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.

Following the heated exchange of words between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the federal government released two lists containing the names of alleged looters.

In the second list released on Sunday, Fani-Kayode was alleged to have collected N866 million illegally.

Describing the list as “nonsensical and utterly shameful”, Fani-Kayode said the list cannot be complete without the names of Buhari and Osinbajo.

“The fact of the matter is that no looters list is complete without the names of Muhammadu Buhari, Yemi Osinbajo, Rotimi Ameachi, Tunde Fashola, Bola Tinubu, Lai Mohammed, Adamu Abdullahi, Dambazau, Kayode Fayemi, Babachir Lawal, Maina, Maikanto Baru, Burutai, all APC Governors and other key members of the Buhari administration and the APC,” he said.

“It is common knowledge that the Buhari campaign in 2015 was funded by moneys that can be traced directly to the state governments of Rivers state, Lagos state, Kano state, Ogun state and a number of other key APC states yet not one of those involved or that governed any of those states at the time have been questioned, arrested or prosecuted by the EFCC or the federal government.

“I blame Vice-President Osinbajo who, as a professor of Law and a learned SAN, should know better and who I am reliably informed is the co-ordinator of all these politically-motivated, baseless and malicious corruption cases which are being conducted against opposition members by the EFCC.

“He is the one that has been saddled with the shameless responsibility of manipulating the prosecutors, emboldening false witnesses, attempting to pressure the judges and attempting to send innocent men and women who are members of the opposition to jail.

“One day, whether he believes it or not, there will be a reckoning for his wickedness just as there will be one for Buhari and his entire government. God will see to that and He will judge and punish them.”

He rejected his inclusion in the controversial list, denying collecting “one kobo” from any government official during the period ex-President Goodluck Jonathan was in power.

“The federal government’s claim that I looted 800,000,000 naira from government coffers is false,” Fani-Kayode said.

“I reject the false label of looter and I hereby return it to sender. I did not receive and neither was I ever given one kobo by any government official, government agency or government parastatal during President Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure.

“The money that I received was given to me by the Director of Finance of the Jonathan Campaign Organisation, Mrs. Esther Nenadi Usman, before the election in 2015 and it was specifically for the conduct of the presidential election. These were private funds and not public funds and neither can anyone expect us to have run an election in 2015 without any money. You do not run election campaigns with sand but with money.”

Fani-Kayode asked how the federal government would declare anyone guilty while cases were in court.

He claimed the list was an attempt by the APC to “silence and discredit” the opposition.