The Ogun State government has refuted the report published by an online news medium, People’s Gazette, that the state governor, Dapo Abiodun, was paying $50,000 to his former aide, Bidemi Rufai, each time he introduced people to him.
In a statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Abiodun, Kunle Somorin, on Sunday, Rufai, who was appointed by the governor as his Senior Special Assistant on Housing, never had any close relationship with the governor, prior to his appointment.
According to Somorin, Rufai, like other aides of the governor, was recommended from his ward for the appointment, and not because of any special favour he offered to the governor during his gubernatorial campaigns in 2019.
The statement further faulted and denied the claims in the report that Rufai was being paid $2,000 as his salary, which according to it is not only “outrageous but baseless. Salaries and wages are fixed and no member of the government is permitted to any other allowances not known to law.
Somorin added that records in the state never showed that Rufai, while serving in the state, brought a single investor or facilitated any investment from the United States of America, wondering how the former political aide would then be paid $50,000 for a deal that never took place.
‘Bidemi Rufai was appointed as.a Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Housing, and was nominated for appointment barely three months before he was arrested.
“He had not resumed formerly and had no official office to transact business. He wasn’t part of the Ogun State Economic Management Team and have got no input into the state government activities. His appointment was based on his activities in his ward.
He didn’t sit in the State Executive Council Meetings and couldn’t have had inputs in policies of the state government.
“The governor had no deal with Rufai on any transaction. He brought not a single one. They can check with the US embassy”, Somorin stated in the statement.