BY Gbenga Ariyibi
Ado Ekiti— Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, yesterday gave insight into how successive Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, administrations in the state, allegedly mismanaged and misappropriated  funds and property belonging to the  state and vowed to recover all looted state’s assets.

Governor Fayemi restated his earlier stand that no single kobo belonging to the state would go unaccounted for.
But former governor Segun Oni accused Fayemi of cooking up fresh allegations of fraud against him and his administration, saying; “No amount of media propaganda, cock and bull stories, lies and sponsored attacks will deter me from championing curses that will benefit Ekiti people.”

Speaking in a television interview programme, Fayemi regretted that the ousted Segun Oni-led administration wasted enormous resources of the state by executing road projects into neighbouring states.

The governor said there was no record of the sale of Oduduwa House on Victoria Island, Lagos jointly owned by Ekiti and Ondo States, alleging that the sale was done when the two states were under the control of the PDP.

According to him, his counterpart in Ondo State, Dr. Segun Mimiko, had to look for money to buy back the Ondo portion of the Oduduwa House, having discovered that the sale of the complex was not
documented.

He said, “Our opponents (in the PDP) did not add to the assets we have on ground, instead they sold our assets. Oduduwa House was sold under the PDP and we didn’t see the money paid in the records. Mimiko went to look for money to buy back the Ondo property.”

Given explanations on why Oni was not invited to defend himself by the Contract/Consultancy Review Committee, CCRC, which investigated contracts awarded by his government, Fayemi said the committee was not a judicial panel of inquiry vested with such powers.

He however described the huge number of abandoned projects left behind by Oni as a “total irresponsible use of Ekiti resources.”

Fayemi assured the people of the state that his government would use every legal means to recover state funds from political office holders, contractors and civil servants involved in the racket.

While explaining that he was not elected by the people of the state to waste precious time on probes, Fayemi said Oni and other beneficiaries in the contract scams would be duly summoned when all legal processes are completed.

His words: “Although Ekiti people did not elect me to spend time probing people, when legal processes are completed, Oni will be duly served. Ekiti is number thirty five on the revenue ladder in the country and the same state was constructing roads into Kwara, Kogi, Osun States.

This was a charity and Ekiti State did not get anything in return. Some of the roads are not completed and we are paying debts on them till today. This is an irresponsible use of Ekiti resources; Ekiti has not gotten anything in return for this ‘charity.”

Asking questions on the controversy surrounding the actual site of the federal university allocated to the state, Fayemi urged the Federal Government to respect the wish of Ekiti people to have the university sited in Ikole-Ekiti.

Fayemi said he had taken his time to speak with eight other governors whose states enjoyed the same privilege of new varsities pointing out that the governors in those states who were elected on the platform of PDP had the final say on the location of the varsities.

“Is it because I do not belong to the PDP? It is about the authority of the governor and relevance of federalism in Nigeria. The power resides in the governor, he is the governor and as long as he remains the governor, you have to respect his authority especially on a decision that is popular with the people of the state”, Fayemi added.