Renowned leadership coach and former presidential candidate of the defunct Alliance for New Nigeria, Fela Durotoye, has revealed how he rejected an opportunity to siphon N5bn in a fraudulent government deal, despite immense pressure from an official who claimed to be a pastor.

Speaking on Tuesday, at the ongoing biannual conference of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria in Abuja, Durotoye recounted the experience, which he described as a test of integrity.

This is according to a Church Times Nigeria report on Wednesday.

According to him, the official approached him with a lucrative training contract, insisting that he had already been selected for the job.

The programme involved training people in all 774 local government areas of Nigeria within eight weeks, and Durotoye was assured that he fit the criteria perfectly.

Upon request, he prepared an invoice, ensuring the cost was strictly based on actual expenses.

His team calculated a fair price of N1.3bn for the training.

But just three days later, a call from the presidency changed everything.

“I got a call congratulating me that I had secured the job.

“But they said the amount I was asking for was too small. They promised to add N700m to make it N2bn. Then they asked me to submit an invoice for N5bn.

“It was a few years ago, I’ll not say how long, but it’s not this administration, it’s not last administration, it’s a while ago, let me leave it like that,” Durotoye said.

Alarmed, he questioned the ethics of inflating the price, especially for a training centred on ethical leadership.