How EFCC report hastened Oyo-Ita’s removal by Buhari

...EFCC submitted report on Tuesday

President Muhammadu Buhari last night (Wednesday) removed the embattled Head of Serive of the Federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita, from office and named Dr Folashade Yemi-Esan, as her replacement as the Head of Service of the Federation.

Although Buhari named Yemi-Esan as Acting Head of Service of the Federation, it was learnt that the  removal of Oyo-Ita, who had been under investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for many weeks, was a tacit means by the Presidency for her to exit the service quietly.

Oyo-Ita

A top source confirmed to Vanguard last night that the removal of Oyo-Ita followed the acceptance of the report by the EFCC, which submitted its finding on the embattled HoS only on Tuesday to the Presidency.

It will be recalled that Oyo-Ita had opted to resign quietly in August shortly after the EFCC had opened a probe into how she alledgely engaged in contract scam and knowledge of how project cash of over N600 million was being kept away by her aide, although she denied all the allegations.

At that time, the Presidency had asked her to withhold her resignation letter pending further directives from the corridors of power.

In the statement last night, the Presidency asked Oyo-Ita to proceed on indefinite leave to ‘allow for the conclusition’ of the investigation being carried out on her by the EFCC.

Although the report of the EFCC was not made public, a source told our correspodent last night that the Pressidency would not return Oyo-Ita to the office but had given her what it referred to as ‘soft-landing’ by quietly easing her out of the public space based on interventions from various quarters.