Gov Daniel’s Cook Keeps N400Million In Bank Accounts

Gov Daniel’s Cook Keeps N400Million In Bank Accounts
May 28, 2009 17:30 (2 hours ago)
By Jide Osokoya

The police in Ogun state have claimed that N400 million has been found in two bank accounts of a cook to the state’s governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, P.M.NEWS learnt in Abeokuta, this morning.

However, from the governor’s office, Okemosan, came a rebuttal that the money found in the accounts was ‘just N13 milliom’. The accounts maintained by the cook, Tope Ikujenyo, are lodged with IBTC/Stanbic and Intercontinental Bank. The cook was arrested on Monday, inside the governor’s private library where he had attempted to steal a huge sum of money belonging to his boss. After his arrest and detention at the Ogun State Police Command, Eleweran, Abeokuta, the 26-year-old Ikorodu-born domestic staff was said to have confessed to the police that though he was unlucky the day he was caught, he had been taking money from there for a long time.

Impeccable police sources who revealed the financial scandal, told P.M.NEWS, that Tope’s two secret bank accounts were exposed by a transaction alert on his phone in the course of interrogation by the police. The sources revealed that on tracing the accounts to IBTC/Stanbic and Intercontinental banks, the total amount found was about N400 million, adding that they were being hampered in their investigation by close aides of the governor’s. “We would have extracted a lot of vital information from the suspect, but the Deputy Chief of Staff to governor Daniel, Mr. Soji Akin-Bankole, told us not to torture the man,” the police sources informed P.M.NEWS.

An inside source at the governor’s office at Okemosan, who confirmed the discovery of Tope Ikujenyo’s two bank accounts, stated that the amount being circulated in the secretariat was N13 million, but quickly added that it could be an official figure. When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Ogun State Police Command, Mr. Muyiwa Awojobi, said he heard about the issue but had not been briefed. Said the PPRO this morning: “I’ve not been properly briefed about the matter and I did not receive any signal to that effect, even though journalists have been calling me since yesterday about the issue.”

He, however, promised to get back to P.M.NEWS after he might have been briefed on the case. Reacting to the story, the Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the governor, Mr. Adegbenro Adebanjo, said: “Once again, that is another of such fictions about Ogun state that we hear and read regularly. “The fact is that a steward was discovered to have illegally entered the study room of the governor’s. Police are investigating the incident. However, no dime of government money was stolen.” Adebanjo had earlier told journalists that nothing like that happened.