You Can’t Force Me to Appear Before October 16, Fayose Writes EFCC

Following the threat by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that he should appear on September 20 for questioning, the Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose has written to the anti-graft agency affirming his readiness to make himself available at the commission’s Abuja office on October 16, 2018.

He said he would do this despite what he described as the “hate prejudice, persecution and partiality already demonstrated by the commission.”

The governor however, said should the EFCC be so much in a hurry that its investigation cannot wait until October 16, 2018, which is the first day after the expiration of his tenure, “without prejudice to Section 308 of the 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 September 20, 2018” indicated in the EFCC’s letter dated September 13, 2018.

According to a statement issued yesterday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Fayose said the letter written by the EFCC to the Customs and other agencies, directing them to watch-list him and arrest him if he attempted to leave Nigeria before the expiration of his tenure raised serious question about the impartiality, independence or neutrality of the Commission.

He reminded the EFCC that “in 2007, precisely on December 19, I willingly presented myself for EFCC investigation at your Lagos office,” adding that “There is therefore nothing new or strange in my letter of September 10, 2018, which has been received and treated in bad faith and taste. I thought I was assisting due and fair process of law.”