N500m fraud: APC urges detained Ondo PDP chieftains to prove their innocence

macfranc007 July 01, 2018 Nigeria News today & Breaking news ▷ Read Naija news 24/7 Oluwatobi Bolashodun

- The All Progressives Congress (APC) has advised the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to encourage Clement Faboyede, the detained party chairman of Ondo state to prove his innocence

- Alex Kalejaye, the publicity secretary of Ondo APC, said the PDP should focus on how to defend one of its principal officer

- The PDP chairman was arraigned before the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos on a three-count charge bordering on money laundering to the tune of N500 million

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Ondo state chapter on Saturday, June 30, advised the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to encourage the detained party chairman, Clement Faboyede, to prove his innocence before a competent court of law, instead of resorting to blackmail, The nation reports.

NAIJ.com gathered that Alex Kalejaye, the publicity secretary of APC, in Ondo state, said the resolve of the PDP to turn an attack on the ruling party, instead of planning how to defend one of its principals betrays the weakness of its defense.

The Lagos Zonal office of EFCC on Friday, June 29, arraigned Faboyede , a former Director-General, Goodluck Jonathan/ Namadi Sambo 2015 Presidential Election Campaign in Ondo, before Justice Saliu Saidu of the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos on a three-count charge bordering on money laundering to the tune of N500 million.

One of the counts reads: “ That you, Clement and others at large, on or about the 27th day of March, 2015 in Nigeria within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, conspired amongst yourselves to accept cash payment of the sum of N500,000,000(Five Hundred Million Naira only), which exceeded N5,000,000(Five Million Naira) without going through a financial institution contrary to section 18 and punishable under section 16(2) of the Money Laundering (prohibition) Act, 2011 (as amended by Act No.1 of 2012)”‎.

The matter was adjourned to September 17, 2018 for trial.

Kalejaye reacting to a statement credited to the zonal publicity secretary of the PDP, Ayo Fadaka, to the effect that the duo had done nothing fraudulent.

Fadaka was quoted as saying: "We wish to state categorically that the APC is merely abusing the privileges of power to prosecute the PDP endlessly, this we consider pedestrian and cheap.”

The APC spokesman said he would have ignored the attack for its pettiness, “but the need to guide people’s mind against pollution makes this reaction a necessity”.

Kalejaye said: “The PDP does not reserve the right under the law to tell the good people of Nigeria whether an individual is a criminal or not; nor when an act is deemed to be criminally fraudulent. That is why the court is there.

“If the former PDP chairman is accused of financial crime, one would have expected his party to urge him to defend himself and prove his innocence, if he is convinced, instead of raising needless alarm”.

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NAIJ.com had previously reported that Faborede was arraigned before the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos on a three-count charge bordering on money laundering to the tune of N500 million

Martins Nwadike, his kinsman, who confirmed the murder on Thursday, June 28, said the deceased was kidnapped on the eve of the just concluded APC national convention.

Nwadike said: “He was kidnapped on Friday, a day to the APC national convention. He was travelling home from Owerri to Nkwerre, our home town. The gunmen blocked him on the Isu-Njaba road.

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