Fani-Kayode To APC: I’ll Never Apologise

Former minister of aviation Femi Fani-Kayode yesterday stood his ground on the claim that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was sympathetic to the cause of the Boko Haram sect, saying until hell freezes, he would not retract the allegation against his former party. The APC had on Tuesday asked Fani-Kayode to retract the comment he made during an interview on a Channels TV programme, ‘Sunrise Daily’ on Monday in which he described Boko Haram as the armed wing of the APC or face legal proceedings. But in a statement he issued yesterday in response to two seprate statements issued by the national publicity secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Fani-Kayode described claims by the opposition party that he had cut a deal with the federal government in his ongoing criminal prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as “not only asinine but absurd.” He then turned the table on the APC, accusing it of libel and threatening to drag the party to court if it refuses to retract its allegation that he had a cut a deal with the federal government in order to avoid going to jail. The former minister said, “The case has been in court for the past seven years and I can say clearly and categorically that no deals have been cut. It is also clear that the prosecution is about to close its case, and for anybody to suggest that some kind of deal has been cut is not only libellous, extremely damaging and deeply malicious but it is also contemptuous of the court proceedings. “This matter will, of course, be taken up at the highest level and some people will be required to produce the evidence and the strictest proof of this so-called ‘deal’”. He disclosed that he had instructed his lawyers to send a letter to Lai Mohammed and the APC to urge them to issue a public apology within a specified period failing which he would instigate legal proceedings against them “for this vicious and most malevolent form of libel and defamation of character.” Recalling that he had criticised the federal government over the last few years and was ready to do so anyday and anytime where and when he feels it was necessary, he said he was also ready to criticise what he described as “the strange tendencies of the APC” where and when he believed it is in the interest of Nigeria to do so.