TOAN scribe denies plan to kill Mgbilimgba, says I don’t have N12m deal with him

By Okey Maduforo, Awka

The Secretary of Anambra State chapter of Tricycle Owners Association of Nigeria (TOAN), Pastor Elvis Okoli has denied allegations that he is plotting to eliminate Mr Wilfred Ezike, who is also known as Mgbilimgba.

Mgbilimgba was last three weeks tortured by some members the Anambra State Anti Touting Special Squad (SASA), a development that raised dust across the state.

Mgbilimgba had in a reaction alleged that Pastor Elvis Okoli had a N12million business deal with him, which according to him he had refused to pay, but chose to eliminate him in order cover payment of the huge sum. He accused Okoli of being behind his ordeal.

But reacting to the allegations in an interview with newsmen in Awka, the state capital, Elvis Okoli said that he had no business with Wilfred Ezike, stressing that he should go and settle with those he had businesses with.

He said, “I don’t think that somebody who is sound upstairs will make such comments because if you listen to what he had been saying, one is not connecting to the other.

According to Elvis, “First he said that he had business transactions with me, secondly he said he gave somebody money through me, thirdly he started changing figures from M12 million to N12.5 million.

“The recent time he said that I have refunded him N6 million remaining N6.5 million. In the first instance, I never had any business transactions with him.

“He said it was a business of emblem. I didn’t distribute emblems for Anambra state government in 2023, somebody else did the distribution and government gave somebody else the job and if he had any business with that person, they should go and sort themselves out and not bringing it to where I am.

“He never gave me money, we never discussed on phone about the business, we never sat down anywhere to discuss anything but if he so wishes that he has anything about that transaction and he had evidences, what he ought to have done is to come up with the evidence of that,” he said.

Okoli further stated that, “I know what are his pains because we are all members of the Union. Why hasn’t he brought that matter all these while , until now that the Anambra State Anti Touting Squad arrested him because of touting and let him go and sort himself with the person that supplied him emblems.

He claimed that Ezike paid for the emblems and emblems were supplied to him and that he àlso made sales.

“The problems are money that they were collecting at Onitsha axis, people who were collecting it and the people who are remitting the money to and the anti tout came in and had to do their job.

“This one that he is talking about attempt to eliminate him is an advance attack because if you read his history you will know more about him and there is nobody that has the life of anybody and my life is in the hands of God.

“I don’t see any reason whatsoever he will bring me into what I never even in the dreams or physically had any transaction with him and he is bringing this manner of allegation and then threat to kill and I want the world to know that anything that happens to me, Wilfred Ezike should be held responsible. I have told my people and I have made some reports because I never had any business with him,” he said

On the activities of the Union in the state Okoli said, “Because of the internal crisis in TOWAN the state government under Gov Charles Soludo had to suspend the activities of the Union, on our efforts to reconcile the internal crisis and approach government to lift the ban we decided to bury our hatchet and come together with Barr Sylvester Obiora to continue as the state Chairman, myself the state secretary and Wilfred Ezike as Vice Chairman Anambra North.

“After our reconciliation we were expecting the state government to lift the ban, they flung into action and started working. This is at variance with what he said that government suspended the Union and that he abided to it.

“The Union is not working in Anambra state and anybody who started collecting money if anti tout sees the person they will arrest that person as a tout and when these boys were arrested they said that they were collecting money for Wilfred Ezike and there are video clips to support that.

Okoli said that Ezike called him to come and sign a petition against the Anti Touting Squad that they are disturbing the work of the Union and that he refused and he was asked to resign his position.

“I refused to sign the petition and I refused to resign because you cannot fight the government and a that we need to discuss with them as we have seen the Commissioner for Transport on the issue.

“They went ahead to sign the petition and submitted it to Government and we are yet to hear from the government on the ban and we cannot be doing this when some of our members go about touting and collecting money and we have written a letter to government dissociating the Union from that petition,” he said.