In response to allegations made against him by some state coordinators, the National Leader of the Oodua People’s Congress, Otunba Gani Adams, has denied receiving the sum of N9 billion from former President Goodluck Jonathan, N1.6 billion from former Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro and $22 million from late Libyan Leader, Muammar Gaddafi.
Also, he denied the allegation of disrespecting Yoruba monarchs and acting against the laws and norms of Yoruba land.
Recall that some state coordinators, who were dismissed from the congress on allegations of indiscipline, anti-congress activities and corruption, accused the leader of financial impropriety.
The expelled state coordinators include Maruff Olanreqaju Salami of Kwara State, Chief Adeagbo Musediq of Oyo and Rotimi Akinsonwon of Ondo.
The expelled leaders called on the EFCC to arrest two aides of the leader identified as Ogunshola Olugbade and Femi Felix, who they accused of being used as ‘fronts’ by Adams.
In his response, Adams denied collecting money from Gaddafi or his proxy, and called on the State Security Service to investigate the allegation against him with the view of seeing if there was any truth behind it.
He said: “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 made these grievous allegations against me are made to prove the source of their allegations, and if they are not able to do so, then they should be made to face the law.
“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 was meant for and how it was sent to me. Such huge amount of money could not be transferred to an individual secretly, so they need to explain how I received the money.”
He described as unfortunate the allegation that he got N9 billion from Jonathan, stating that the accusation was made by Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who was then the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Adams said Mohammed had accused him of collecting the money as payment for a pipeline surveillance contract and to gain the congress’ support for his (Jonathan’s) re-election.
“It is on record that we have not received any money from the government as payment for the pipeline contract.
“Such allegation coming from a person who today occupies the office of the nation’s Minister of Information is rather unfortunate and sad,” Adams said.
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