Refunded N21m In Salary Fraud At OAU
Facts have emerged on how the Deputy Governor of Ekiti State, Prof Olusola Eleka, exploited handouts sales at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, to fleece his students, including examination question racketeering, for financial gains.
In Eleka’s handout fraud scheme, he would ask students to buy his handouts at exorbitant prices, making it difficult for majority of the students to buy.
To compensate the rich ones that bought his handouts, he would secretly draw examination questions in advance for this set of students in order to come out in flying colours. The practice encouraged leakage of exam questions that rocked the university at a time.
The authorities launched investigations into the menace of handout racketeering and exam leakage and Eleka was found to be one of the lecturers neck-deep in the practice.
A panel was set up to try Eleka, but an influential lawyer in Ile-Ife, one DFO Olaniyan, was hired by Eleka to defend him. Olaniyan applied his influence and connections to set Eleka free. Olaniyan is still alive as a witness to Eleka’s fraud.
Again, Eleka contested as Deputy Governor of Ekiti State without resigning his appointment at the Obafemi Awolowo University. Any Nigerian contesting election must resign his appointment while an appointee can take a leave of absence without pay.
But Eleka, who was contesting an election in 2014, never resigned. He manipulated the system to fraudulently take a leave of absence with pay. He was collecting his salaries and other allowances at Ife until intelligence on Eleka revealed that he never resigned and that, indeed, he was collecting salary at the OAU while also working as Deputy Governor in Ekiti State taking another salary and allowances running into millions of naira.
When Fayose and Eleka got a hint that the information might leak to the opposition as campaigns for the July 14 2018 guber election were getting underway, Eleka quickly ran to Ife to make a refund of N21,153,793.62 on May 8, 2018 with receipt number 131845, being refunds of salaries and allowances he fraudulently took without rendering any services to the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, while at the same time taking another pay in Ekiti State as Deputy Governor.
All these details will be part of a comprehensive probe of Eleka by security and anti-graft agencies, which may soon swoop on him to answer questions on his fraudulent past.
Eleka is at present at the Ekiti State Election Petitions Tribunal challenging the result of the July 14, 2018 election that he was not qualified to contest in the first instance on the basis of the fresh revelations on his criminal activities that would have disqualified him from contesting the election.
The next few days will be interesting as to what becomes of Eleka and his boss, Governor Ayodele Fayose, in turning Ekiti State to a fraud fiefdom. S