Femi Fani-Kayode - Challenges and Allegations

Challenges and Allegations

Femi Fani-Kayode was investigated and arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in July 2008 in connection with the alleged misappropriation of a 19.5 billion naira (approx.US$300,000,000) "Aviation Intervention Fund" but the investigation was eventually closed and the charges were later dropped for lack of evidence of any wrongdoing on his part. Again the Senate Committee on Aviation in early 2008, investigating the allegations of misappropiation of the same Aviation Intervention Fund initially recommended that Fani-Kayode be banned from holding public office for five years but subsequently withdrew that recommendation when it became clear that he was not amongst those that misappropriated any public funds. In June 2007 he was reported to have had an affair with one of his former aides, Miss Chioma Anasoh who was arrested by Nigerian customs agents on suspicion of attempting to illegally launder US$240,000 via Abuja airport. Fani-Kayode allegedly arrived at the scene and facilitated her release. Anasoh later denied that her arrest had ever taken place, and also sued the newspaper that alleged that she did so for libel at the Lagos High Court. Fani-Kayode also denied the claim that he went to the airport to facilitate the release of Chioma Anasoh and he also said that she was never caught or arrested at the airport with US$240,000 or any other amount.

Fani-Kayode was again arrested on December 2008 by the EFCC and was charged with 47 counts of money laundering. These charges had nothing to do with the Aviation Intervention Fund but rather with some lodgements in his private bank account. Fani-Kayode stated that he was innocent and that the lodgements were funds that accrued from his own private businesses and legitimate sources and had nothing to do with government funds. He alleged that the investigations of the Yar'Adua government and the EFCC were politically motivated, and that he was being persecuted in the same way as other colleagues from the Obasanjo government, such as Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu, for their ties to President Obasanjo.

At the beginning of 2010 due to President Yar'Adua's chronic ill health coupled with his prolonged absence from Nigeria without anyone hearing a word from him or knowing what was really wrong with him, there were speculations that a power struggle had begun in Nigeria with President Obasanjo and his loyalists pushing for Yar'Adua to step down and hand over power to his Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. Yar'Adua's loyalists resisted this suggestion vehemently and it was reported that part of their response to that challenge was to implement yet another strategy to try to silence and intimidate President Obasanjo and his key loyalists like El-Rufai, Fani-Kayode, Ribadu, Lawal Batagarawa, Nnenadi Usman and Andy Uba by roping them into a phantom coup plot with a view to eventually charging them and trying them for treason and encouraging military insurrection. This was the same method that was adopted by General Sani Abacha who had jailed Obasanjo on similar trumped up charges when he was in power. General Obasanjo was released and pardoned a number of years later after Abacha died and after General Abdulsalami Abubakar took power.

In November 2010, Fani-Kayode alleged that Yar'Adua's intention before he died was to jail and destroy the legacy of his predecessor in office and the man that single-handedly brought him to power, President Olusegun Obasanjo, together with those that were perceived as being his loyalists, including El-Rufai, Ribadu, and Fani-Kayode himself. He also alleged that Baba Gana Kingibe, the Secretary to the Federal Government during the Yar'Adua administration, was the principal enforcer of that plan and that Yar'Adua administration officials James Ibori, Tanimu Yakubu, Abba Ruma and Michael Aondoakaa were also involved.