HOW AGBELE BOUGHT N1.3bn HOUSES FOR FAYOSE-EFCC

The Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission says it has made a
breakthrough in the alleged corruption case
against Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti
State and his associate, Mr. Abiodun Agbele.
Agbele, who is currently in EFCC custody,
was said to have received N1.219bn from a
former Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu
Obanikoro, on behalf of Fayose during the
build-up to the Ekiti governorship election in
June 2014.
However, EFCC detectives alleged that
Fayose used a large portion of the N1.219bn
along with some money from the Ekiti State
coffers to buy houses in Lagos and Abuja
which have since been seized by the anti-
graft agency.

An investigator told our correspondent that
Fayose used Agbele to buy the houses in a
way that would make the source of the
money look legitimate.
He explained that the two houses in Abuja
were bought with bank loans from Skye Bank
and Zenith Bank on the surface. However,
the stolen money was used in offsetting the
bank loans.
The detective said, “From the Dasuki funds,
they had about N300m stashed in one
account. However, when they were going to
buy the N270m property located on
Yedseram Street, they did not use the
N300m from the stolen funds. Rather, they
obtained a loan of N120m in the name of
Spotless Hotel from Zenith Bank to deposit
for the house.
“They then took about N150m out of the
Dasuki money to pay the balance on the
house and then used the same Dasuki funds
to offset the loan. They went through all this
stress to cover their tracks and make it look
as if it was a bank loan they used in buying
the property.
“Why did they take a loan that would be
gathering interest when they had more than
enough money to buy the house?”
The investigator said when it was time to buy
the four duplexes in Lagos, Fayose and
Agbele allegedly overpaid the seller of the
houses and then told the seller to use the
balance which was N200m, to pay for
another house in Abuja.
The source said, “The worth of the four
duplexes in Lagos is N1.1bn which was sold
by Still Earth Nigeria Ltd. However, Fayose
and Agbele paid Still Earth N1.3bn in cash
and then told the company to transfer the
balance of N200m to Skye Bank. It was that
N200m that was used in purchasing the
building at 44 Osun River Crescent, Abuja.
This was done so that no one would be able
to trace the fund to them.”
Meanwhile, the anti-graft agency has also
traced about N60m to an account belonging
to Agbele.
The account titled, BYKD Consultant Limited,
which is domiciled in Diamond Bank received
some funds from Ekiti State local
governments under the heading, Millennium
Development Goals.
A copy of the statement of account sighted
by our correspondent showed that on
February 18, 2015, about N18, 159, 050 was
paid into the account. On the same day,
about N15, 319, 650 was paid into the same
account while about N11, 238, 500 was
deposited into the account on the same day
among other transactions.
The transaction history showed that Agbele
paid about N40m and N15m into the account
of Affordable Motors.
“This is a new discovery and we want to
know why such funds would be released by
local governments because so far there is no
evidence of any contract between the local
government and Agbele,” the source said.