Gbenga Daniel, former governor of Ogun State, has ruled out possibility of having cases to answer with the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), asking the anti-graft agency to count him out of the listed ex-Nigerian governors that will be tried soon.
The former governor was reacting to a report published last week in some section of the media (not BusinessDay) where the attorney-general and minister of justice, Abubakar Malami, was reported to have directed the anti-graft agency to re-open cases of corruption against 31 former governors.
The report had it that Daniel was listed as one of the affected former governors, which included Senate president, Bukola Saraki; former Akwa Ibom State governor, Godswill Akpabio; former Rivers State governor, Peter Odili, and ex-Governor Rashidi Ladoja of Oyo State.
In the letter, the attorney-general and minister of justice was quoted as saying that: “It is clear that some of these governors and other politically-exposed persons have not been charged to court, despite the fact that the ICPC has concluded their investigations, concerning allegations levelled against them, for one reason or the other.
“It is the position of the present administration that all ex-governors, who the ICPC had long concluded investigations into the various allegations levelled against them, should be immediately prosecuted.”
But in a swift reaction to the media report, Daniel described as false report that there was a pending corruption case against him by the anti-graft commission, adding that he had no case to answer as far as his governance was concerned in the state.
The chairman of Kresta Laurel Engineering Limited, while speaking through short message service (SMS) on Sunday, defended his innocence over the allegation, saying the inclusion of his name must have been a “mistake somewhere.
“I categorically declare that I have no issues with ICPC whatsoever and I am sure that a mistake has been made, either deliberately or otherwise, in this issue and others,” he said in SMS sent to some correspondents in Abeokuta.
