lt’s fabrication, he should produce evidence – Akeredolu

CANDIDATE of the All Progressive Congress, APC, in the Ondo governorship election, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu and his estranged deputy governor Hon Agboola Ajayi have disagreed on running grants and security votes they collect on a monthly basis.

Akeredolu had said that his deputy who is now the governorship candidate of the Zenith Labour Party receives the highest running grant of N13m monthly which is the highest in the country by any deputy governor and yet betrayed him.

He said that “Agboola (Ajayi) does not want to wait for his time. I made him comfortable, I asked him to represent me in so many places but some people were warning me, I said they should leave him alone.

“No deputy governor has collected what he was collecting in the history of the state. I gave him N13 million monthly, his predecessors did not collect as much as that.

“No deputy governor collects as much as that in Nigeria. I gave him enough room to operate yet he betrayed me.

But Ajayi in his response through his Media Adviser, Allen Sowore, said that Governor Akeredolu collects N750m monthly as security votes.

Allen said that the governor lied that he collects N13m noting that he only collects only N12m.

According to him “The Deputy Governor is surprised that the Governor could go to the press announcing the sum of N13m as what the Deputy Governor gets as if it was a gift for the personal use and not for the use of his office.

“The Deputy Governor states that what came to his office until Akeredolu refused to release the same was 12 million naira per month.

“This includes the imprest of his office, allowances of staff, fuelling of vehicles, care of his residence, and welfare of his aides.

“Huge as the amount may appear, it amounts to not so much when the heads and number of individuals it caters for are considered.

“The governor gets a security vote of 750million naira every month. He, Akeredolu, also gets an imprest of about N150million

But the governor in his response through his chief Press Secretary Segun Ajiboye described Ajayi as a liar.

Ajiboye in a statement said that “the disclosure by Mr Governor that the governorship candidate of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) receives a monthly running grant of N13 million appears to have further emitted the entrenched character of the man in question, Agboola Ajayi.

“True to type, Ajayi has resorted to lies and fabrications that Mr Governor gets a monthly payment of N750m as security vote. This brazen misinformation is not a surprise but a true reflection of the unstable and treacherous content in Ajayi.

“The general public is urged to take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act to interrogate both statements by Mr Governor and Ajayi.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the State Bureaucracy which process such payments is very available to confirm the veracity or frivolity of either of the statements.

“The October 10 governorship election is between integrity and the absence of it.

“The patent greed which has provided motivation for the treachery and perfidy of Ajayi appears to have created further paths of dishonesty to oil his political misadventure. Succinctly, he is misled my his mind of greed.

The statement said that “By his antecedents, Agboola Ajayi would have wittingly provided evidence of the payment of such huge amount even before now if it was true.