The Ondo State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Clement Faboyede, who is being prosecuted for allegedly laundering N500m in the build-up to the 2015 general elections, lamented on Tuesday, October 6 2020, at the Federal High Court in Lagos that he was “thoroughly humiliated” by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, in 2016.
As part of the humiliation, Faboyede said he was made to wear bathroom slippers and paraded before cameras, with his photos uploaded on the Internet.
The Ondo PDP chairman, alongside then Ondo State Coordinator of President Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation for the 2015 general elections, Modupe Adetokunbo, was accused of receiving a cash sum of N500m from one Owolanke Michael and paying same to the Ondo State Election Committee of the PDP without through any financial institution.
They are facing three counts of money laundering before Justice Saliu Saidu.
Testifying on Tuesday in a trial-within-trial to determine the authenticity of the statements he made to the EFCC in 2016, Faboyede told the court that an operative of the EFCC, Zakari Usman, compelled him to make some refunds as a condition for administrative bail.
Led in evidence by his lawyer, Usman Shamshudeen, Faboyede said he and Adetokunbo were received and quizzed by Zakari on December 8, 2016 at the EFCC office in Lagos.
He said, “His (Zakari’s) first statement to us was that ‘you guys stole N500m and you are thieves’.
“They now confronted us with a paper receipt issued by myself and the second defendant, in relation to the N500m paid to us on behalf of the PDP Ondo State at Fidelity Bank, Akure, which our party asked us to collect for the 2015 presidential and National Assembly elections for Ondo State logistics.
“Officer Zakari said he wanted the money back. Thereafter, he handed us over to Mrs Oluwatoyin Ige, who took our statements.”
Faboyede said Zakari was so cruel that he initially refused to allow him to go to the toilet when he was pressed, adding that he felt very humiliated when the EFCC operatives made him walk in bathroom slippers from the agency’s detention facility to its office the following day.
“It was humiliating; we were thoroughly humiliated,” he said.
He added, “They paraded us like thieves before cameras, taking shots, asking us to march in a file and brought us to court. The humiliation was too much. It was on the Internet, everywhere in the whole world.
“Before we knew it, we were at Ikoyi Prison for 22 days.”
The court adjourned till November 16, 2020 for final addresses in the trial-within-trial.
Comments