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Fela Durotoye, a former presidential candidate of the now-defunct Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), has stated that he declined an opportunity to embezzle N5 billion in a fraudulent government transaction.

He said that a government official who claimed to be a pastor and had worked in a previous administration put a lot of pressure on him to do this.

Speaking at the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria’s (PFN) biennial convention in Abuja on Tuesday, Durotoye made this claim.

According to him, the official said he (Durotoye) had already been chosen for the position and offered him a substantial training contract.

He was told that within eight weeks, the program would provide trainings in all 774 of Nigeria’s local government districts.

Durotoye’s group proceeded to create an invoice by figuring out a price of N1.3bn for the training.

“A few years ago, I’ll not say how long, but it’s not this administration, it’s not last administration it’s a while ago let me leave it like that,” Durotoye said.

He added: “I got a phone call and it happened to be a Man of God from Abuja who called me to say Fela, there’s an opportunity that I want you to explore, in fact let me be clear with you, you have already gotten it.

“But they said the amount I was asking for was too small. They promised to add N700m to make it N2bn. Then they asked me to submit an invoice for N5b.

“The man assured me he wasn’t ripping off Nigeria.

“He said he had served the country and deserved compensation. When I reminded him that the blessings of God make one rich and add no sorrow, he fired back, saying, ‘There is no sorrow in this one. You have been doing well for Nigeria. It is time for Nigeria to do well for you.”

Durotoye disclosed that he turned off his phone as the pressure increased.

According to Durotoye, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, or EFCC, detained some presidential officials three months after the talks for embezzling N426 million from a fund for ethical leadership training.

Durotoye also said that he was not paid throughout his time as the Special Assistant to the President under President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

“I did not collect an official car, I did not collect a house, and I did not collect a salary for serving.

“It was difficult to get my letter out because, according to somebody in government, my refusal to collect those things would make it difficult to pin me to corruption,” he said.

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