Festus Keyamo, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, has disclosed clarification on a property he was said to have acquired in the United States of America (USA).
Information Nigeria reports that social media went agog when the Minister appeared before a building in the US.
But according to a statement via Twitter on Saturday, Keyamo maintained he did not acquire the house with looted funds but with money made from legal practice.
The chief spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress campaign council however said he was only trying to bait the horde of those he called sore losers at the last elections with a video of his vacation in “one of my properties abroad” amid a light workout.
Keyamo said they fell so terribly for the bait, adding that they seem to view everyone from their depraved universe with assumptions everyone will wallow in the same moral squalor as them.
On how he acquired the property, Keyamo said he had, on March 6, 2019, written to the relevant government agencies, informing them of the closure of his foreign account(s) and the repatriation of the funds to the country, “being some savings I had made as a private legal practitioner and a property investor over decades.”
According to Keyamo, the foreign funds were lying in his accounts until he was appointed as Minister in 2019.
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He stated, “In 2021, I again wrote to the relevant agencies (by letters dated January 22, 2021), informing them of the movement of those funds out of the country to purchase a property as a better investment decision, instead of the funds lying idly in the account whilst I am in public office.”
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria furthered that he laughed when he saw the trending issues regarding “just one of my properties in the US,” and that some people think that he (Keyamo) could not afford such a property after his 30 years of active, high-profile practice of law.
Keyamo added that he has been underrated because he had chosen to live a simple and modest life and not given to the ostentatious display of wealth.
According to him, the building is “about the cheapest of my several properties.”
He said that his flourishing and manned law chambers and his real estate investments are still far more financially profitable than serving Nigeria.
“Ours is a labour of love to my country,” he said.
He boasted that “Some of us don’t need Government funds or patronage to get by.”
