Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has challenged the Federal Government to unmask the owners of REMITA, a consultancy company which allegedly collected N25 billion fee in a day for transferring N2.5 trillion to the Treasury Single Account (TSA) on behalf of the government. The governor said on Sunday that he would not attend the meeting called by the Federal Government with state governors on the TSA because his administration is not interested in the TSA policy, describing it as fraud against Nigerians by the All Progressives Congress (APC) led Federal Government.
In a press statement issued on Sunday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and the New Media, Mr. Lere Olayinka, the governor asked the Federal Government to rather “remove the veil on the face of REMITA so that Nigerians can know the real owners through whom the All Progressives Congress (APC) is siphoning Nigeria’s money to fund Kogi and Bayelsa states’ governorship elections.”
He continued:
“From all intent and purposes, this TSA policy is aimed at recouping money spent on the last general elections by the APC, as well as raise money for future elections, especially the Kogi and Bayelsa states’ gubernatorial polls. It is also meant to enrich some individuals for doing virtually nothing and that can be seen from the discovery of N25 billion that already accrued to just a single company in one day!
“How can the Federal Government justify a transaction in which a single company gets one per cent, amounting to N25 billion in one day?
“In this economic situation that Nigeria is, shouldn’t the one per cent commission have been negotiated downward to like 0.1 per cent which would have reduced the N25 billion to N2.5 billion?“Even manufacturing companies, with thousands of employees don’t make N25 billion profit in a month. Therefore, what Nigerians are expecting from the Federal Government is explanation on the alleged N25 billion scam already associated with the operation of the TSA, instead of calling state governors to a meeting that is aimed at imposing the TSA policy on the states,” he said.
Fayose, who insisted that he would not attend the Federal Government’s meeting with the governors on the TSA, said that the Federal Government cannot force its policies on states that are federating units in the Nigerian Federation. According to him:
“Ekiti State is entitled to its own policies and it is not under any obligation to accept the Federal Government policies, especially the TSA that is already robed in the garment of fraud.
“I therefore wish to state categorically that Ekiti State is not interested in the TSA policy and since the state is not interested, I, as the custodian of the popular mandate of the entire people of the state will not attend any meeting called by the Federal Government on the TSA,” he said.