I did not receive N2b from Rivers govt – Ex-minister reply Amaechi

Former minister of aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode has said that he did not receive N2b from the Rivers state government.

The minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, in an interview, alleged that Fani-Kayode was given N2b by Peter Odili's administration.

Amaechi said the former minister pocketed the money which was meant for the repair of a runway and walked away.

In his response, Fani-Kayode described Amaechi’s allegations as absurd, Daily Post reports.

He said “First and foremost, I wasn’t given any money by Rivers State Government, it was my predecessor office that was given a loan by Rivers State Government and the money was not paid to Aviation, it was paid to FAAN.

“Professor Aborishade was Minister at the time not me and the money was paid into FAAN’s account and about N350m was set out of it before I became Minister

“By the time I got into office, there was N1.6bn left in the FAAN account and they told me about it.”

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“We gave Julius Berger N1.5bn which was 50 per cent paid for the runway and they did the work, the runway was complete before I left office and was commissioned about a month after we left office, we left N132m in FAAN account,” he added.

Fani-Kayode had earlier slammed the Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayo Oke for covering up for Amaechi.

The NIA claimed ownership of the money that was discovered in an Ikoyi apartment by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).