While it can never attain the same world-shaking proportion of Brexit – the Fayose/EFCC/Zenith Bank saga is one for the ages.
It’s as shameful as it’s entertaining.
Nigerians were appalled and at the same time, bemused that officials of Zenith Bank would kneel before Ekiti state governor, Ayodele Fayose.
not aware of what happened?
Fayose’s personal account in Zenith Bank was last week, frozen by the EFCC in connection with over N1.2 billion he allegedly received from the National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki, to facilitate his re-election as governor.
The governor took to his Twitter account on Monday evening to blame the government of President Muhammadu Buhari for the embargo placed on his personal account.
Following the freezing of his account, Fayose in an attempt to lash back at the Executive, claimed that the President’s wife was involved in the much publicised Halliburton bribery scandal which saw William Jefferson convicted.
He wrote: “Even the president cannot claim to be an angel. The estate he built in Abuja is known to us. His wife was indicted over the Halliburton Scandal. When that American, Jeferson, was being sentenced, the President’s wife was mentioned as having wired $170,000 to Jefferson. Her name was on page 25 of the sentencing of Jefferson. We can serialise the judgement for people to see and read.”
Subsequently, Aisha Buhari reacted angrily on her Twitter handle – where she described Fayose as “an unchained mad dog”.
Fayose would then note that his 2014 campaign was financed by Zenith Bank and money raised from donations, fundraisers and selling of campaign souvenirs.
“EFCC is only acting a movie scripted, produced and directed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) government of President Mohammadu Buhari just to silence me being a major opposition voice in the country.”
“I was asked to nominate a trusted ally to be related with and I nominated Mr Abiodun Agbele.”
“All the payments into Abiodun Agbele’s account domiciled in Zenith Bank were directly from Zenith Bank.”
“In actual fact, the account was opened by Zenith Bank hurriedly at that time and Abiodun Agbele’s identity card which ought to have been collected before the account was opened was only collected last week in the bank’s desperation to perfect the account obviously after submitting to the intimidation and harassment of the EFCC.”
“Most of the funds posted into Agbele’s account were through the Ibadan, Akure and Lagos branches of the Zenith Bank and sometimes they brought cash.”
Subsequently, Sahara Reporters, through its ‘FLASH’ update on Twitter, alleged that Zenith Bank denied funding Fayose’s election.
While Nigerians waited for the bank to confirm the veracity of the report, some members of Zenith’s management team visited Fayose in the Ekiti Government House.
For whatever reason they visited, it became apparent that they didn’t know that the governor had reporters lying-in-wait, ready to ambush them – while one of the bank’s staff (who’s said to be a branch manager) was kneeling down like a child being punished for being recalcitrant.
The photos from the spectacle drew the ire of Nigerians who couldn’t fathom the rationale behind going to ‘beg’ Fayose.
If the apology was for the EFCC’s embargo on the governor’s account, Nigerians saw the visit as pointless – simply because it won’t amount to the unfreezing of the account.
And because the bank never issued an official statement denying funding Fayose’s governorship campaign, to many Nigerians – the begging visit was ill thought out.
While Fayose’s supporters see the spectacle as a victory, saner minds would ask – has the governor’s account be unfrozen?
Has Zenith Bank now confirmed funding the governor’s campaign?
Since both aren’t affirmative, what then did Fayose’s orchestrated show amount to?
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