•PDP condemns action

wife of former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, Precious Chikwendu has denied an allegation by the Economic and Fianancial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) that her Access Bank account was used to launder funds from the office of the National Security Adviser and that N2.4 million was found in it.
In a statement by her Special Assistant, Chineye Okechukwu, Chikwendu said the allegation was a lie from the pit of hell.
“The assertion that Chikwendu’s bank account was used to launder campaign funds or funds from the NSA’s office and that N2.4 million was found in the said account at the time of her arrest is a lie.  The said account was opened in 2005 at Onitsha, Anambra State when she was about to enrolled at the University of Calabar. At that time, the name  of the bank was Intercontinental Bank. The account was operated  by her from 2005 till 2012 when it was abandoned and went dormant. It was not utilised or activated again until August 2016 when small deposits of between N200,000 and N500,000 were made into it and the total amount that entered into that account over a period of two months was approximately N4 million naira…Consequently, at the time that the account was frozen last Friday, the amount that was left in it was N95,000.
“She was not notified about the freezing of the account until someone paid N200,000 into it on Saturday. The money entered the account but, after that, it could not be accessed. She decided to stop at the bank on her way out of Ado Ekiti, on Monday, in order to know what was going on and she was then detained and offered to the police and EFCC, together with her eight-month-old son, Aragorn, for arrest.” According to Chikwendu, “The total amount that was in the account at the time of the arrest was N295,000.
“At the time she abandoned and stopped using the account in 2012, Chikwendu had not even met Fani-Kayode.
Chikwendu’s aide added that there was no truth in EFCC’s claims that her boss “has 17 accounts in GTB. She has one current account with a merged savings account in GTB which was opened in 2012. Outside of that, she has a dollar account and a pounds sterling account with the same bank which were all opened on the same day in 2012. None of these accounts have any connection whatsoever with public funds or with Fani-Kayode and neither was any GTB BVN linked to his.
Reacting, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)  condemned Chikwendu’s detention and his eight months old son. In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, the party said it was reprehensible for a government agency to harass family members of its perceived enemies.
The PDP stated that in addition to the freezing of the bank accounts of Fani-Kayode,  government equally freezed the bank accounts of his wife. “This action represents a new low in the Federal Government’s resolve to harass and persecute real and perceived enemies of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration under the guise of an anti-corruption crusade.”
Regardless, in a statement released on Monday night, the EFCC said Chikwendu and her child  were never detained by the commission.
“Contrary to the media spin about the purported arrest of mother and child, a certain Chikwendu Sonia attempted to withdraw money from an Access Bank account that had been placed on ‘Post No Debit’ Category, following the discovery of illicit cash flows into the account. She was intercepted by the bank while the commission was notified but because it was late, the EFCC advised that the suspect be taken to the police station for processing and release on bail.
They were arranging to take the suspect to the police station when Ekiti Governor Ayo Fayose stormed the bank with thugs and his personal security and forcefully secured the release of the suspect, with claims that the EFCC had no power to detain anybody in his state. He also vowed to close down the branch of the bank. The said account, which had a balance of N 2,307,712.82 was flagged following investigation into the PDP Joint Trust fund when the commission traced N1.1billion to another account of Fani-Kayode…”