Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State has accused the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, of demanding a $2 million bribe from him.
The allegation is coming amid the growing rift between the governor and the anti-graft agency.
Recall that Matawalle had, in a statement on Wednesday, called for Bawa’s resignation, saying he had questions to answer on corruption.
But the EFCC Chairman responded that he had nothing to hide and asked Matawalle to petition appropriate authorities if he had any evidence against him.
On Thursday, the anti-graft agency revealed that Mr Matawalle is being investigated for allegedly diverting over N70 billion state funds.
However, speaking during an interview with the BBC Hausa on Friday, Matawalle denied embezzling the state funds, insisting that Bawa could not be trusted.
“It is not just to always blame governors. It is not only governors who have treasury, the federal government also has. What does the EFCC boss do to them? As he is claiming he has evidence on governors, let him show to the world evidence of those at the federal level.
“If he exits office, people will surely know he is not an honest person. I have evidence against him. Let him vacate office, I am telling you within 10 seconds probably more than 200 people will bring evidences of bribe he collected from them. He knows what he requested from me but I declined.
“He requested a bribe of $2 million from me and I have evidence of this. He knows the house we met, he invited me and told me the conditions. He told me governors were going to his office but I did not. If I don’t have evidence, I won’t say this.”
When contacted by the BBC to get his reaction, Mr Bawa said that although no human being is 100 percent clean, he challenged Mr Matawalle to expose any fraud record against him.
(Adapted from several reports including Daily Trust and Daily Nigerian)
