BY CHINYERE OBIORA – Nearly four years after two bullion vans were seen driving into Lagos Bourdillion residence of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu just before the 2019 presidential election, the Lagos State Organising Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ayodele Adewale, has come out with claims that the vehicles “missed” their “way there” while on transit
Adewale, who also insisted that the bullion van saga had been put to rest a long time ago, said; “On the bullion van or no bullion van and all of that, I think that matter has been put to rest. There was no money in the bullion van.
According to him; “The bullion vans that even came missed their way to have come there. I was in that house on that very day and it was not on an election day. The bullion vans missed their way to have come there”.
The APC chieftain defended the incident while speaking in an Arise TV interview on Thursday, saying; “There are some companies that have high (number of) staff (members); that pay their staff with cash; that bullion van missed its way there, and it was not invited by Asiwaju or anybody.”
Also claiming that he was at Tinubu’s residence on the day of the incident and there was no money in the bullion vans as speculated then, Adewale said the vans had no business being at the former Lagos State Governor’s house on that day because he did not order for them nor did anyone else in the house.
Reminded that the APC presidential candidate’s responses at the height of the incident were at variance with his current claims, Ayodele said Asiwaju Tinubu was only joking about it.
On the eve of the 2019 elections, some pictures went viral on social media showing two bullion vans making their way into Tinubu’s premises in Lagos and the development sparked public outrage, with various groups petitioning the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that the former Lagos governor should be arrested and investigated.
But while reacting to the saga then, Asiwaju Tinubu had stated that the bullion vans were not transporting ballot papers, but rather money belonging to him and not to any government agency.
