Former junior Minister for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, has offeredto return N785m to the Federal Government, out of part of the slush funds he got from the National Security Adviser during the unconscionably rapacious years of the Goodluck Jonathan administration. 

Last December, reports emerged that the EFCC had gathered evidence tracing the infamous #EkitiGate – a scandal that broke when an army captain Sagir Koli revealed from his hiding abroad how the governorship election in Ekiti State that brought in Ayo Fayose was rigged in favour of PDP, at the instance of former President Goodluck Jonathan – to Obanikoro. Ayo Fayose is of the PDP. The reports revealed that EFCC had obtained financial transaction information, as well as testimonies from witnesses, detailing how huge funds were transferred to companies Obanikoro named. Responding to the audio, Obanikoro denied ever being involved in election rigging in any form. He dismissed it as something that was made up on “Social Media”.

On his part, Ekiti State governor Ayo Fayose said the voice that was heard on the tape was not his, but fake voice that was created with technology.

The scandal generated by the audio followed an earlier one that began January 31, when a former Secretary of PDP in Ekiti State, Tope Aluko, narrated on Channels TV how President Jonathan advanced huge sums of money as well as military support to the party in the state for the purpose of rigging the election.

Aluko said; “Before the primaries, we had this believe that because Jonathan was coming out for second term and because we are going to be the first election in the south-west, at a meeting, we told him (former President Goodluck Jonathan) that north-east, north-west and north-central may not be too sure for him because the Hausas are clamouring for presidency and that you now have south-east and South-south, you must manage the South-west”.

He continued; “It was on the basis of that that we told him that he must manage South-west.

“Because of his interest, even before winning the primaries, we did so many security reports to tell Mr President then that he must make sure that we manage South-west zone and it was because of that that he gave us the head of security agencies,”

He also told reporters in Abuja that Mr Jonathan actually gave Ayo Fayose N4.7b, an amount which fits into the total sum EFCC has eventually come to tie the duo of Obanikoro and Fayose to.

Mr Aluko’s depiction of the plans his party hatched to capture the state for PDP did fit exactly into every scenario that played out on election day in Ekiti, including the arrest by security agents of key APC figures to stop them from motivating their members to victory. Aluko had said; “There was a strike team, a mixture of the SSS, military, the mobile police… that is about all. We had a meeting at Aso Rock on security and funds. We were given security and funds.”

He listed the persons at the meeting to include Mr. Jonathan; the then national chairman of the PDP, Adamu Mu’azu, Governor Fayose; and himself (Aluko).

He continued; “At the meeting President Jonathan agreed that if he needed Ekiti, he would support us to ensure that we delivered.

“At the second meeting we had Obanikoro, Jelili, Omisore… It was a combination of Osun and Ekiti people and they were discussing how we were going to move to take the South-west.

“Before the primaries, His Excellency, Ayodele Fayose, said that we can only win using the military,” he said.

Mr Fayose swiftly dismissed Aluko’s allegations, saying it was a ploy by the APC to distract Nigerians from its failure in governance at the national level. He also cast Mr Aluko as sick, and wondered how sane minds could be listening to Aluko.

By June, EFCC operatives were certain that Musiliu Obanikoro was at the centreof the rigging and the funds that made it possible. They concluded that N4.745b – part of the $2.1b arms procurement funds diverted by former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki – was traceable to Obanikoro, Ayo Fayose, Iyiola Omisore and others. The agency discovered that a firm owned by Obanikoro and his sons, Sylva McNamara Limited, was used to launder the money.

In July, still on the investigation, DSS operatives arrested Moroophat Onikoro, Musiliu’s wife, in connection with the N4.745b. From the United States where he ran to soon after President Buhari’s inauguration in 2015, Obanikoro thundered that the allegations were false and just concocted by agents of state against him and his family. He dared the EFCC to extradite him from the United States if the agency thought it had evidence against him.

Monday this week, Obanikoro submitted himself to the EFCC where he’s remained in detention, cooperating with the agency and giving helpful information on his involvement in the N4.745b fraud.  He told EFCC operatives that N3.880b out of the N4.745b was given to the duo of Ayo Fayose and Iyiola Omisore. He has offered to return N785m to the government.

The willingness of Obanikoro to return money, which he initially denied ever taking, must have come to Ayo Fayose as a shock. As a sitting governor, Fayose is currently enjoying constitutional immunity, a strange provision that shields a governor and president from prosecution while still in office.  But given that Obanikoro has got him implicated, it is doubtful that Fayose will not spend the first few hours of his post-governorship evening  in the cold embrace of EFCC officials.