Suspension of SGF and NIA's DG is a plot to cover up owners of the stolen funds - Fayose

The governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose has labelled the suspension of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Engr. Babachir Lawal and the Director-General of National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Amb. Ayo Oke, as a cover-up plot from the federal government.

He said the setting up of a 3-man Committee assigned to investigate the discovery of over N13 billion cash by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in a luxurious apartment at Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos is diversionary, afterthought and a way to officially cover-up the original owners of the money.

Fayose said: “Would the President have set up a probe panel if these scams were linked to anyone in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or those members of his party that are not in his good books?

“Most importantly, what business does Presidential Committee have with investigation of crime?

"Are they telling Nigerians that they have lost confidence in all the intelligence and investigative agencies of the government, including the EFCC and DSS?”

Fayose spoke through his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka.

He stated that it was becoming glaring that President Buhari has definitely lost the control of his government to some people.

He added: “The Buhari-led Federal Government is operating like many governments within one government. There appears to be many Presidencies within the Presidency and this is the reason for the confusion everywhere.

“The cat of President Buhari’s government hypocrisy in its fight against corruption has already been let of the bag.

“Nigerians can no longer be deceived by a government that protects its own people whenever they are accused of corruption while setting the DSS and EFCC to invade houses of members of opposition parties, especially those perceived as having presidential ambition in 2019 in the night to arrest and detain them indefinitely even when corruption allegations against them have not been proved.”

Fayose claimed that was the inability of President Buhari to take actions beyond his political party and ethnic sentiments that brought his administration into the present controversies, he asked:“Did the President not write a letter dated January 17, 2017, to the Senate, exonerating the SGF? So what has changed in the case of the SGF? Was his announced suspension just for balancing?

“Why waiting for this messy OsborneGate to act on the Presidential Initiative for the North East (PINE) grass-cutting scam? Could it have been a case of one Presidency (Buhari) writing the Senate on January 17, 2017 to clear the SGF and another Presidency suspending him today?

“Whichever way one looks at it, it gives no other impression than that of confusion in the government.

“Is their presidential committee also going to tell Nigerians those who abandoned N49 million cash in an airport that has CCTV cameras? What of the owner of the N448 million the EFCC said it found in a shop at LEGICO Shopping Plaza, Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos?

“In all these, what I see is a government trying frantically to cover-up corrupt acts of its functionaries but like I said before now, even though we know that the APC-led federal government has the capacity to sweep it under the carpet like many others before it, Nigerians will have it on record that they are being ruled by a government of the more you look, the less you see.”