The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Friday released a former Deputy Governor of Osun State, Senator Iyiola Omisore.

Omisore was released 19 days after his arrest having met bail conditions.

The former deputy governor was arrested on July 3, 2016 after N1.310bn was traced to the accounts of five companies allegedly belonging to him.

The money was said to be part of the N4.7bn allegedly disbursed by a former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro.

Omisore allegedly received the funds in four batches from Sylvan McNamara between July and August 2014, a few weeks before the Osun State governorship election.

A document detailing the transaction showed that the money was paid into accounts of three companies allegedly belonging to Omisore.

A detective at the anti-graft agency explained, “On July 9, 2014, N150m was paid into the bank account of Sawanara at First Bank. On August 1, 2014, N300m was paid into Sawanara Limited.

“On August 8, 2014, about N160m was paid into the bank account of Fimex Gilt Limited domiciled at UBA. On the day of the election, August 9, 2014, N350m was paid into the First Bank account of Metropolitan Consortium.”

Omisore had, however, denied receiving any money from the ONSA.

The former deputy governor had also sued the EFCC for N10bn and prayed a Federal High Court in Abuja to grant him an order of perpetual injunction restraining the “defendants (EFCC) either by themselves, their agents, officers, servants, privies or otherwise however called from making such or similar defamatory publication of and concerning the plaintiff (Omisore) to any person or persons.”

However, Omisore made a deal to return the N1.3b in installments before he was released, PREMIUM TIMES reported.

According to the news site, he paid the first installment of N300million before he was allowed to go home.

Those familiar with the negotiation said before his release on Friday, Mr. Omisore issued a letter authorising his bank to release N170million to the EFCC, being the entire amount he had in his frozen account.

He also gave the anti-graft commission a draft of N130 million, bringing the first installment of the repayment plan to N300 million.