Governor Fayose

By Eromosele Ebhomele.

Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State on Sunday declared he was not attending
the meeting called by the Federal Government with state governors on the Treasury Single Account, TSA. Fayose said his decision stems from his belief that the Ekiti state government was not interested in the TSA policy, which, according to him, is a fraud against Nigeria and its people.

The governor said this in a press statement issued by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka. Fayose asked the Federal Government to rather remove the veil on the face of REMITA, the alleged firm handling the TSA contract, “so that Nigerians can know the real owners, through whom the All Progressives Congress (APC) is siphoning Nigeria money to fund Kogi and Bayelsa states governorship election.”

Fayose argued: “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 poll. 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 month! How can the Federal Government justify a transaction in which a single company gets one percent, amounting to N25 billion in one month? In this economic situation that Nigeria is, shouldn’t the one per cent commission have been negotiated downward to like 0.1 percent 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 one 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.”

Governor Fayose said the Federal Government cannot force its policies on states that are federating units in the Nigeria federation.

“Ekiti State is entitled to its own policies and it is not under any obligation to accept 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.

But a recent report which supposedly emanated from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, may have rubbished Fayose’s belief as it was stated that the parent body of REMITA had existed for about 20 years while REMITA, which is not even a company, has been in existence for about 10 years. The report also showed that REMITA is not solely entitled to the one per cent. Other participating banks are to share from the amount.

As we reported earlier in this medium (https://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2015/11/tsa-agencys-n25b-fee-stirs-outrage-in-senate/): “It is as a payment platform, “adopted by the Central Bank of Nigeria for the payment and collections of funds on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria and used by all 22 commercial banks and over 400 micro finance banks. It runs on a software provided by Systemspecs, a company based in Lagos chaired by Christopher Kolade. The CEO is John Obaro. The company started operations in 1991. Thus the company to probe is not Remita, but Systemspecs.”

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