Hon Kolapo Alimi, Osun State Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, has responded to allegations of N3.7 billion fraud leveled against him while serving as the State Commissioner of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs under previous Governor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola's administration.
In a media conversation with Osun Online Publishers (OOPA) yesterday, March 12, Alimi stated that he had never signed any Local Government accounts during his tenure. The claims made by a former Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Prince Adebayo Adeleke (Banik), were an attempt to distract the people of Osun from the ongoing investigation into the misappropriation of funds by the former administration in which he (Banik) was involved.
In addition, Alimi said that the Director General of Finance, not the Commissioner, is in charge of the Local Government joint account.
However, he demanded a public retraction and apology from both Adeleke and Jamiu Olawumi, who allegedly spread the claims which Alimi described as diversionary method, malicious, defamatory and falsehood concocted to tarnish his reputation.
Alimi also threatened to take Banik to court to recover damages if he did not give his apology and take back his "malicious and defamatory statement."
“If ALGON Chairman spent ALGON money how is that my concern? They would hear from my lawyer very soon to explain how money meant for ALGON becomes my problem, Alimi says.
“First and foremost, the allegations against Adeleke sent to the EFCC are true. This is not tit for tat. If they believe there is a case against me, they should file a petition before the EFCC instead of making noise in the media.
“The money moved from the Local Government Account to security beefed up from Local Government account to ALGON account to Ibikem Construction and Akeem Ibitoye who owned the account, is the only signatory to the account.
“Akeem Ibitoye was the Director of Finance of a Local Government. If they have anything against me they should write their own petition.
“During my tenure as Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, I wasn’t a signatories to any government accounts. The money they are talking about belonged to the local governments and the local government authority made use of their funds.”
0 Comments