Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State has dismissed allegations that he is building a $3m hotel in Lagos with monies stolen from the Paris-London Club refunds. In a statement signed by the Head, Public Affairs of Nigeria Governors’ Forum Secretariat, Abulrazak Barkindo, Yari said he does not have even a plot of land, not to talk of a hotel in Lagos. According to Barkindo, “Reports on Governor Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar of Zamfara State and Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum making the rounds that the he is building a $3m hotel from monies stolen from the Paris-London Club refunds to states give cause for worry.The reports contain harmful, damaging and libelous insinuations which remain largely unsubstantiated despite the fact that it attributes the leaks to the EFCC officials in Lagos.”
Recall an online report over the weekend had suggested that operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Lagos had found a hotel being constructed by Governor Yari with $3m he allegedly stole from London-Paris Club loan refund to Nigerian states. According to the purported report, “Apart from the $3million, Governor Yari also diverted N500 million from the Paris Club refund to pay off a loan.” It also said the governor embezzled the sum of N2.2 billion from the N19billion set aside illegally to pay “consultants” who worked for the 36 governors to reclaim the Paris Refund from the Federal Government.
But Barkindo described the report as “harmful, damaging and libellous insinuations which remain largely unsubstantiated.” “Governor Abdulaziz Yari is not building any hotel in Lagos nor were any monies stolen or embezzled from the Paris-London Club refunds to states or from any other source,” he said. He said if really the said story emanated from the EFCC, then the anti- graft agency, “Must be held responsible for feeding the media with lies,” adding, “This is perhaps why the EFCC has lost most of the high-profile corruption cases at the law courts after it had unfairly stage-managed media trials and caused their victims personal pain and public umbrage.”
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