A report that emerged that due to one Olatimbo Ayinde, said to be influential in President Bola Tinubu’s administration, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, NNPCL, Bayo Ojulari, has been forced to resign, has received a denial.
Peoples Gazette, an online news medium, had on Saturday published that the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede, and the Director-General of the State Security Service, Adeola Ajayi, on Friday allegedly abducted the NNPCL GCEO and under duress made him to resign.
The publication claimed the exercise had to do with Ms Ayinde’s alleged prosecution in the UK for purported bribery.
It mentioned that the British-Nigerian woman is “one of the most powerful forces steering the Tinubu administration,” claiming that the two Nigerian security agencies had been deliberately slow at giving British prosecutors intel on her matter.
“Mr Ojulari told us he didn’t know Olatimbo Ayinde.
“He also said he heard she was trying to control businesses at NNPC and he rejected such moves,” the medium quoted its unnamed source as saying.
Reacting to the report, a highly-placed EFCC official who demanded anonymity denied it.
The denial was contained in a WhatsApp message sent to this medium.
It reads: “The report of abduction and forced resignation by the Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede, is, to say the least, ridiculous and mischievous.
“Olukoyede does not need to abduct or force anyone to resign an appointment since he is not an appointing authority.
“Besides, if he needs anyone to account for anything, he does it by writing or inviting the person formally. Whatever does not follow such procedures is not true and should not be taken seriously.
“EFCC Chairman is not a bully. He is a law- abiding Chief Executive of the nation’s most important anti- graft agency. He has never abducted, coerced, tortured or caused anyone to resign his position at any time. The public should ignore fake news peddlers and their false narratives.”
