Governor Yahaya Bello has dismissed the allegation of misappropriation of bailout salary account levelled against the Kogi State Government by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Addressing State House correspondents in Abuja on Tuesday, Bello accused EFCC of misinterpreting facts as the state does not not own or operate a fixed deposit account.
”And all of these were done and finished in the year 2019. So first, there’s no N20 billion account, or N19 billion, no fixed deposit account. So I don’t know where the lie is coming from,” he said.
The Governor said Kogi is the only state that has published on its website how the bailout fund was utilised.
”I will urge each and every Nigerian to please go to Kogi state website, all the facts are there.
”I challenge Nigerians to challenge all of those governors to publish the same particular bailout fund utilisation and then you’ll be able to judge me whichever way.
”No Kogi state government’s salary account is frozen. None whatsoever. None of our accounts is frozen or embargo placed on any of our accounts by EFCC at all.
”The Bank has denied that we have such an account. And besides that, the bailout fund that we obtained, we appropriated in line with the agreement and understanding between Kogi state government and the workers.”
A Federal High Court in Lagos had frozen the state government’s salary bailout account domiciled in a commercial bank over an alleged N20 billion loan obtained from it.
The account was frozen by the court following an ex parte application brought by the EFCC, pending the conclusion of the investigation or possible prosecution.
Abass Muhammed, counsel to the EFCC, told the court that the order was necessary so as to preserve the ‘res’ (the fund in question) and abate further dissipation of the funds in the account.
