Chief Olu Falae is a former secretary to the government of the federation, former finance minister, Afenifere chieftain and national chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Last week, Falae who was only recently abducted by persons suspected to be Fulani herdsmen, was named as a beneficiary of the $2.1bn earmarked for arms purchase but which ended up being shared by former NSA Sambo Dasuki in exchange for soliciting for votes for erstwhile President Goodluck Jonathan.
Falae has admitted he did receive N100m from Anenih who received a chunk from Dasuki. But the septuagenarian has said the money was for a political assignment and in any case, he didn’t know the funds came from monies meant to procure arms.
In a telephone chat with online news portal, Premium Times, Falae also sought to quash allegations from members of his political party that they were not aware N100m was received by the SDP from the PDP.
Falae said the money was paid through the party’s bank account before it made its way across the state chapters.
“It is true I received the money for the party and then it was distributed to the state branches of the party for onward distribution to other levels of the party,” he said.
“The money came through the party’s account and it was through this account that the monies were distributed.
“The account is there for everyone to verify. I can assure you that all the branches of the party in the states received the money.”
Falae said it was unfair for some party members to claim that they were not aware of the donation, because their respective branches were informed and received the money.
“We have over 200,000 people in the party, am I supposed to go around telling everyone that I have received the money?” he asked.
Falae noted that the party leaders who received the monies subsequently reached out to the grassroots.
“I have my integrity intact,” he said. “I was a former MD of a bank, I was a former minister and a former secretary to the government of the federation.
“Once they cannot link us to the Dasuki thing, they are coming up with all sorts of things”.
Falae said his integrity should go before him in this case.
“Based on my integrity, these allegations should be discarded. At 78, what will I be doing with public funds?”
Speaking to The Punch, Falae said the N100m gift was accepted based on certain conditions.
“The PDP’s Board of Trustees’ chairman came to me in Akure to seek our support. We gave him six conditions; that they should have zero tolerance for corruption, create job for the unemployed, fight insurgency and restore security in Nigeria, reduce recurrent expenditure to have money for capital development, etc; that if they (PDP) accept those conditions, we would support them.”
According to him, the former ruling party agreed to the terms orally.
Falae explained that he later wrote to Anenih, who wrote back to accept the conditions. “That was the basis for our cooperation to support their presidential candidate; that was the purpose for which the money was given,” he stated.
The ex-Minister of Finance noted that both SDP and the PDP did not discuss money during the negotiation, while the conditions given were in the best interest of the country.
He said, “They realised that the SDP had no money; we had no government (post). He (Anenih) said without money, we would not be able to be effective. So, he sent us the money, which I passed on to the SDP and it was distributed to all the states (chapters) of the federation, while our people were instructed to campaign for their presidential candidate during the election. This was the story.”
The post “At 78, what will I be doing with public funds?” | Falae sheds more light on how N100m from #DasukiGate went down appeared first on Ekekeee.