THE Director of Publicity of the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organisation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, has dismissed a report that he is hiding from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over an allegation that he illegally received government funds for his party’s campaigns last year.
Fani-Kayode said media reports that he had gone underground in order to evade arrest were not true.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the former aviation minister said he had not received any invitation from the anti-graft agency, adding that he had been in Abuja and not out of the country.
He said the rumour that he was hiding confirmed that the EFCC wished to arrest him in public, humiliate him and lock him up indefinitely.
He said, “I have just read some absurd media reports which quoted their sources in the EFCC as saying that I had gone underground and that I was hiding from them. This is false. I have not been invited by the EFCC by letter and neither have they phoned me or attempted to reach me in any other way. I have been in my Abuja home in the last few weeks and I am not hiding from anyone.
“There is no need for all that drama and if it happens that way, the Nigerian people will know why. I have no fear of the EFCC, I will respond to their invitation any day and anytime they send it to me and I will help them to clarify whatever issues they wish to raise in any way that I can. I am not a coward and this attempt to further demonise and humiliate me by the EFCC will fail. If they have any questions for me, why don’t they just write to me or call me, give me a date and I will be in their office.”
Fani-Kayode said he had made his position clear on the presidential campaign funds, adding that others being probed on the campaign funds issue were sent letters of invitation and were reached.
He added, “Others were invited in a civilised way and were treated in a humane and decent manner. I really do wonder why I should be treated differently, criminalised in the newspapers in this way and not even afforded the common courtesy of a formal invitation by them. I await their letter or their call and I leave those that wish to give the impression that I am running from them to God.”
