Facts have emerged on the identity of Bunmi Falana, a Zenith Bank Manager seen in a photograph last week kneeling down in the Government House in blackmail stunt to "beg" Governor Ayodele Fayose after the EFCC leak on how Fayose used him to launder N4.7b arms cash in Zenith Bank.
PDP sources said Bunmi was one of the very close aides of Fayose when he was running for the governorship election for his first term in 2003. He shared the same status with other Fayose's close supporters, including Goke Olatunji and Tunde Adesanya, among others.
PDP sources said Bunmi was one of the very close aides of Fayose when he was running for the governorship election for his first term in 2003. He shared the same status with other Fayose's close supporters, including Goke Olatunji and Tunde Adesanya, among others.
While Bunmi today remains the only surviving aide of the governor still in his camp, the other five had long abandoned him over irreconcilable differences over life of fraud and deceit and after he had also paid them evil for good and today, the five have found peace with their lives outside Fayose's camp.
After Fayose was sworn in in 2003, everyone had thought that he would pick Bunmi Falana as his Personal Assistant because Bunmi was seen as very brilliant considering his level of education. But as is customary with Fayose, who doesn't want educated people around him in government, he jettisoned Bunmi for Goke Olatunji.
Fayose didn't find any position for Bunmi in government, but he secured a job for him at Pacific Bank.
To make use of Bunmi at Zenith Bank to keep illegal transfer of money, Fayose sought audience with Zenith Management to offer Bunmi a job if the bank hoped to enjoy the patronage of his government. The bank agreed and gave Bunmi a job.
Sources close to Fayose said it was Bunmi that opened an account for Feyisetan Fayose Foundation Movement in Zenith, which the Fayoses used to launder money in South Africa to buy property.
During investigation of the poultry project fraud, Bunmi was invited by the EFCC to make statement on all he knew about the account. His testimony indicted Fayose, but the Federal Administration controlled by his party PDP daily-dallied on the case and frustrated EFCC's effort to secure convictions for the suspects.
But Fayose never forgave Bunmi for making a statement to the EFCC that indicted him and this led to their parting of ways.
When Dr Kayode Fayemi became the governor, Bunmi was transferred to Idi-Iroko Ogun State branch of Zenith Bank. After Fayose was sworn in for second term, Bunmi approached Fayose for reconciliation and forgiveness.
Fayose agreed and Bunmi further requested the governor to help him get a transfer to Ado-Ekiti. He agreed. Fayose approached Zenith to move Bunmi to Ado-Ekiti as the Manager, insisting that that must be the condition under which he would be willing to patronise Zenith Bank. The bank agreed and Bunmi was moved to Ado-Ekiti as Manager.
Bunmi was acting his brief in aid of the governor until the EFCC bubble burst.
Zenith Bank sources said Fayose was naive to have believed that because he has a surrogate as the manager of the bank, all his illegal transactions would not be unveiled by automated banking system that puts the sealing of corporate deposit in banks at N10m in single transaction.
Therefore, all illegal deposits in millions were being monitored by the Central Bank, which passed its information to the NDLEA and EFCC.
By the time the EFCC blew the lid over Fayose's questionable transactions, Fayose thought it was Bunmi who collaborated with others to disclose to the EFCC the balances in his accounts, that of his wife with the balance of N100m and son, Rogba Fayose with the balance of N200m, all traced to arms cash diverted to Fayose's election.
When the news broke in the media, Fayose denied any link with Dasukigate believed to be the source of the money, claiming that he never collected money from Dasuki but that Zenith Bank financed his campaign after an agreement with the Bank management.
But the bank quickly denied Fayose's claim, thus putting the governor to shame and so he needed quick device to redeem his image by plotting to ridicule the bank by blackmailing it.
Sources close to Bunmi said Fayose therefore resorted to threats against him over the offence he never committed just to ensure that he succeeded in blackmailing the bank. The threats became unbearable for Bunmi, and having known how deadly Fayose is when it is money matters, he decided to beg Fayose to save his life.
And so fearing for his life, Bunmi pleaded to no end to explain himself but Fayose would not listen until the governor gave a condition to him to come to his office with some senior officials who must join him in explaining and pleading with him that Bunmi was innocent. But Bunmi never told other senior officials that Fayose asked him to bring them to his office to beg on his knees.
Before Bunmi and the bank official arrived the Governor's Office, Fayose had hidden Government House photographers in the corner of his office.
As Bunmi entered, Fayose started a drama: he stood up, shouted on top of his voice, threatening to deal with Bunmi. Bunmi grabbed his leg, pleading that he knew nothing about the expose. Fayose snapped off his hand from his leg to sit on a chair while the other Zenith official watched in shock. Suddenly, cameramen emerged from a corner of the office and started taking Bunmi's photograph on his knee begging Fayose.
Pronto, Lere Olayinka took to the social media, claiming that the management of Zenith Bank had begged and apologised to Fayose on their knees for denying that the bank financed his election, thus effectively blackmailing the bank.
The flustered bank is now battling to save its image while Bunmi's job is at stake.
While Fayose still grandstands that he will name the sponsors of his election, sources close to him and Zenith Bank confirmed that the governor is just staging stunts to threaten the bank's officials to blackmail them into tampering with the bank's records to destroy the credibility of the EFCC's claim.
Zenith Bank sources said, however, that it is too late to tamper with the records, as the EFCC is already with the iron cast records of Fayose's illegal transactions in the bank.
Also in the business of helping Fayose to keep illegal money in the banks is one Abiodun Alaso (aka Abbey). He was a staff with Fidelity Bank until Fayose approached Access Bank to take him as a Manager, otherwise, Ekiti State government would have no business with the bank.
Access Bank took him and it is believed that he is fulfilling his mandate as the sole official responsible for collection of IGR cash deposited in suspicious accounts believed to be owned by Fayose in the bank.
The Monitors had last week described Alaso's role in Access Bank as a complex conspiratorial liaisons with other top managers of the bank to help Fayose launder money, insisting that Abbey is exclusively in charge of attending to payments of Ekiti State's internally generated revenue (IGR) cash to the bank. Anybody who misses Abbey in the office during payment of fines or other IGR cash has to wait till he comes back to the office or come the next day.
Abiodun Alaso's duty is mainly to oversee fraudulent payments of IGR cash to a secret account allegedly credited to the governor.
In the payment protocol, there are two sets of vouchers involved in paying fines by traffic offenders to the bank. It runs like this: traffic offenders collect a payment voucher that has no account number at EKSTMA office and take it to Access Bank. At the bank is Abbey exclusively designated to attend to traffic offenders.
He collects the voucher from the payees and copies its content to a new voucher provided by him without an advantage of letting the payees access the account number. Abbey now collects the money, fills the new teller and puts an account number allegedly owned by Fayose that he won't allow the depositors to see and keeps the teller to himself but stamps the voucher the offenders bring from EKSTMA office and returns same to them. The offenders now go back to EKSTMA office with stamped voucher that has no account number.
The bank's stamp on the voucher that has no account number is a proof that the offenders have paid their fines and so their impounded vehicles will be released on production of the stamped voucher that has no account number.
As we speak, it is believed that the money discovered by EFCC is fraction of Fayose's loot in Access Bank, Sterling Bank and Wema, where sources said he keeps the balance of the bailout, refunds on federal roads, Ecological Fund cash, CBN N2b SME loan and sundry others that he can hide in his underground bunkers in South Africa-made safes kept in his Afao-Ekiti and Lagos homes.
Another of Fayose's men is Bisi Akinola (aka Bisime). His account was also used to siphon money by Fayose during his first term. He ran to London after Fayose was impeached but only came back to Nigeria after Fayose won his second term election.
The Monitors
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