BREAKING NEWS:Olu Falae in EFCC's Net

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Thursday, questioned Olu Falae, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, for his alleged role in the arms deal scam. Falae had in January admitted that he received N100 million from Tony Anenih, the then Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party’s Board of Trustees, before the 2015 presidential election.

The money, which had emanated from the Office of the National Security Adviser, was paid to Falae to get his party, Social Democratic Party, to endorse and campaign for former President Goodluck Jonathan.

  

On the instruction of Anenih, N100 million was allegedly paid into the UBA account of Marecco Nigeria Limited- which allegedly belong to Anenih- by the Director of Finance of the Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation, Senator Nenadi Usman.

Falae was questioned for several hours by the EFCC before he was allowed to go on the condition that he would return in the next two weeks. An EFCC detective told the Punch that, “Chief Falae came to our office based on an invitation. He told us the story of how he received N100m based on the instruction of Anenih. However, our investigations revealed that Falae only transferred N60m to his party, SDP.”

“The remaining N40m was personally withdrawn by him, which means it was not used for campaign. When he was confronted, he started appealing to us that he did not want to be detained or taken to court, so we told him to go and bring the N40m first.”

“He said we should give him some time, so we have given him two weeks to go and bring the money and then report back to us.” On whether the EFCC would charge Falae, the source said, “Chief Falae, is a former Permanent Secretary and Minister of Finance. There is no way he would not have known that the deal was shady.”

“If he really wanted to use the money for campaign, why didn’t he ask that the N100m be paid into the account of the SDP? Also, why didn’t he question the source of the fund when it did not emanate from the account of the PDP? Why did he keep N40m to himself?

“We are not victimising any political party or investigating the source of campaign funds. All we are doing is tracing the billions of dollars stolen from the ONSA account. Once you return the money, you will have no problem.”

On his part, Falae has confirmed that he was questioned by the EFCC, saying that, “It is true that I was invited by the EFCC and during the interrogation I told them that I didn’t collect money from Dasuki; that the money given to my party through Chief Tony Anenih was not given to me personally but to my party, the SDP.”

“I also told them that the money was mainly used for the election. I told them it was an inter-party arrangement between our party and the PDP and the money was spent on the election. I didn’t know where the PDP got their money from, it was not my business but the money given to us had been spent on the election.

“I explained to them exactly what I said in my interview in the newspapers.”