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I won�t honour police invitation � Bisi Akande
Dotun Oladipo and Tunde Odesola
Former Governor of Osun State, Chief Bisi Akande, has said that he will not honour the invitation by the police for further questioning on the allegations of fraudulent deals levelled against him.
Akande spoke on Tuesday just as the police authorities in the state insisted that he must make himself available for questioning.
Akande, in a telephone interview with our correspondents, said that if the police had any evidence to warrant his being probed for fraud, such evidence should be handed over to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission for investigation.
He said, �I believe that if I am guilty of any offence, the best thing to do will be to send me to the ICPC for trial.
�That is the ideal thing because that is the body charged with the responsibility of probing such allegations.�
The former governor, who is also the factional Leader of the Alliance for Democracy, alleged that the Peoples Democratic Party-led Osun State Government was only attempting to use the police to scare him.
He said that he had maintained regular communication with Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola on the issues raised by his government, adding that he had also made a statement to the police on the issue.
He said, �The state government only wants to use the local police to bamboozle me.
�That is what I want to avoid and that is why I am shouting to the whole world to draw attention to what is happening in the state.�
Akande said he felt his initial statement to the police, which was taken in his house by the Osun State Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Audu Abubakar, was enough for the police to determine whether he should be prosecuted or not.
Akande said he was ��surprised when the police boss called me again last Friday saying that I must come to their office to explain certain things to them next Thursday (tomorrow).
�I asked him why and he said it was because of certain things that I wrote in a file.
�I said good, I will not come if it�s over certain things that I wrote in a file.
�I told him that the people of Osun State voted for me so that I can write things in the file and I have done that.
�I asked him, is there somebody who has implicated me?
�He said no and I said well, if they feel that what I had written isn�t satisfactory, they should take me before the ICPC and not to bamboozle me.
�The boy (Oyinlola) is just interested in having me bamboozled by the local police here and I won�t take that.�
Akande said if he was going to be involved in a fraudulent deal over the Governor�s Office project, it would not just be to the tune of N126 million that was alleged but would have been able to make up to N1 billion.
He said the problem was that the present government was not willing to pay the contractors that handled the project, adding, �If you are owing me and I don�t want to pay can you go and arrest a third party over that?
�Let the government pay those contractors and leave me alone.�
The former governor also denied receiving N85 million from one Lanre Ladeji for his re-election campaign.
He said that AD funded the campaign, adding that it was a surprise that the said Ladeji reported the case directly to Oyinlola who called him on the issue.
But police authorities in Osun State insisted on Wednesday that Akande had a case to answer, saying that the former governor would be arrested anywhere he was found.
A top police source told our correspondents that Akande must make himself available to the police for questioning.
The source said there were some pieces of evidence indicating financial misappropriation in the execution of the Bola Ige House project.
Akande, according to the source, must honour the invitation by the Osun State Criminal Investigations Department to set the records straight.
The police officer explained that some of the former governor�s cabinet members had made ��damning confessional statements�� on the issue.
The source said, �When we confronted the governor, he accepted seeing the fraud but he denied approving it.
�We would arrest him if we see him because he has questions to answer. We have got a warrant of arrest on him.�
The Osun State Government has, however, denied engineering the questioning of Akande by the police.
The Punch, Wednesday July 07, 2004
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