Fayose’s Impeachment : One feared dead as pandemonium hits Ekiti

IMPEACHMENT NOTICE: Some pro-Fayose supporters, protesting the planned impeachment of the Ekiti State governor, Ayo Fayose by 19 APC lawmakers in Ado Ekiti, yesterday. Photo: Dare Fasube.

One person whose name was given as Modupe Olaiya was reportedly killed yesterday at Itawure near Efon-Alaaye as anti-impeachment protests by persons believed to be loyal to the Governor of Ekiti State, Mr Ayo Fayose entered the second day on Tuesday.

But the police is yet to confirm the death as all attempts to speak with the Police Commissioner, Mr Taiwo Lakanu by Vanguard was not successful. He promised to call back on the matter, saying the command was trying to put some things in shape first while the mobile phone of the state Police Public Relation Office was switched off.

Monarchs worry
This is coming just as the State Council of Traditional Rulers have expressed their worry over the development pledging to intervene in the tussle between the 19 All Progressives Congress, APC, lawmakers and the state governor, Mr Ayo Fayose.

Olaiya was said to have been hit by a stray bullet when a bus conveying the 19 APC lawmakers in the assembly were coming from Osun State and the protesters blocked the road to prevent access to the state capital, Ado-Ekiti a development that reportedly led to a commotion
Though, his co-protesters were said to have taken him to a nearby hospital, it was said he later gave up the ghost after the medical team could not save his life.

Security agencies were said to have turned back the APC lawmakers, stopping them from entering the state.
Meanwhile,there were anti impeachment protests in various parts of the state yesterday,while leadership of the labour movements including the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, the Trade Union Congress, TUC, the Joint Negotiation Council, JNC, and the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE mobilising their members to the assembly to prevent the APC lawmakers from impeaching the governor.

iT was gathered that aside Ado Ekiti, protests were equally held simultaneously in major towns of Ise, Emure ,Efon Alaaye, Iworoko, Aisegba, Ikere, Ogotun Igbemo, against the attempt to impeach Fayose from office.

Civil servants, students affected
In Ado Ekiti, civil servants were prevented from accessing their offices,while most shops and banks hurriedly closed shop and human and vehicular movement restricted.

Some Senior Secondary School students, presently sitting for the West African School Certificate Examinations outside the capital were turned back by party thugs.

The police commissioner, Mr Taiwo Lakanu, had deployed Armoured Personnel Carriers and personnel to all the affected towns and troubled spots, while the House of Assembly complex was sealed off by heavily armed policemen, who kept vigil in the place.

The deputy governor, Dr Kolapo Olusola, who spoke on behalf of the governor likened the APC lawmakers onslaught to the biblical oppression by the Egyptian against the people of Israel, expressing confidence that the governor will triumph over his enemies.

“This Egyptian war led by APC will be defeated. Governor Fayose did not elect himself, but the people put him there. This is just a passage and it will go by the grace of God. I want to assure you that we will see this war against an anointed man no more in few days time”, the deputy governor said.

The Head of Service, Dr Gbenga Faseluka also thanked the workers for showing solidarity with the state governor and assured them of government’s care all the time.

However, monarchs in the state under the umbrella of Ekiti State Council of Traditional Rulers will on Thursday meet to deliberate on the ongoing political crisis in the state.

The Chairman, the Onitaji of Itaji-Ekiti, Oba Adamo Babalola, said in Itaji-Ekiti on Monday that monarchs in the state would not fold their arms and watch the situation degenerate.

Commenting on the situation, Oba Babalola warned against resorting to violence.

“We have been told the runaway legislators are coming back to Ekiti State and that impeachment notice has been served. I don’t know whether that is true, but we need to give peace a chance and allow the Obas to come in to deliberate on the matter.

“We have made attempts severally to settle the dispute between the executive and legislative arms. The legislators did not answer us.
“I don’t know why coming to Ekiti should involve impeachment. We will hold a meeting on Thursday to deliberate on the matter.

“People should maintain peace and people should not be disallowed from doing their businesses. The court is there for adjudication and we should make use of that,” he said.

You lied over Efon-Alaaye killing, APC tells Fayose

The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ekiti State has described as untrue reports that the convoy of the APC lawmakers killed a man at Efon Alaaye-Ekiti yesterday.

It said that the report by Governor Ayodele Fayose’s media aide, Lere Olayinka, alleging that the lawmakers’s convoy killed a man was the figment of his imagination and one in the series of media spins he had been selling to the unsuspecting public to mislead the people to get sympathy.

Reacting to social and electronic media reports of the purported killing, the Special Adviser on Media to Speaker Omirin, Wole Olujobi, said the governor’s aides were in a familiar terrain of mindless propaganda to mislead the public.

“The truth is that no one was killed. Nobody saw a dead body on the way up to Itawure junction where the soldiers disallowed us to pass. Itawure junction is not the same as Efon-Alaaye, so we don’t know where he got his story.

“However, we heard that Fayose removed a dead body from the mortuary and presented it to Efon people, claiming that Hon Folorunso Ogundele, a member of the House of Assembly and an indigene of Efon-Alaaye, was the one who pulled the trigger to kill a fellow Efon-Alaaye man in order to instigate violence in the town against him,” the statement explained.

It added: “For those who know Fayose very well, this story is typical of his rabble-rousing tactics to cause mob action against opponents.

“It is gratifying that the people were able to quickly decipher that Fayose was up to a mischief to set brothers against brothers.”

The statement explained that the soldiers who stopped the lawmakers on their way offered no explanation for their action. “Instead of losing our cool for their strange behaviour, we just left the place,” the statement explained. It added that sources later confirmed that the soldiers were allegedly under a firm instruction to disallow the lawmakers from passing through the check-point.

Meanwhile, the lawmakers have vowed to go ahead with the impeachment proceedings, saying that the lawmakers had a constitutional duty and responsibility to probe any infraction of the constitution.

Our story by 19 APC lawmakers

The 19 All Progressives Congress, APC, lawmakers of Ekiti State House of Assembly were yesterday chased out of Ado Ekiti by armed soldiers who allegedly prevented from them sitting to carry out their legislative functions.

They also alleged that the state governor, Mr. Ayo Fayose was inciting the people of the state to start attacking them because of the move to investigate him.

Briefing newsmen in Osogbo, yesterday, the majority leader, Ekiti state House of Assembly who is also the chairman, House Committee on Information, Mr. Churchill Adedipe, who was flanked by the Speaker, Dr. Adewale Omirin and other 17 APC lawmakers, said they had after their last sitting in Ado Ekiti last Wednesday fixed their sitting for yesterday to continue investigation into allegations of constitutional breaches levelled against Governor Fayose.

He added that the vehicle conveying the lawmakers was however prevented from entering the state capital at Itawure, a town of about 40 minutes drive to Ado Ekiti by heavily armed soldiers, whom Adedipe claimed took orders from Brig. Gen. Aliyu Momoh, Brigade Commander, 32 Artillery Brigade, Akure.

Adedipe said for over two hours, the soldiers prevented them from proceeding to Ado Ekiti, adding that information gathered by some of the lawmakers who made calls to people waiting for them at the state Assembly indicated that Governor Fayose had flooded the premises of the assembly with thugs.

His words: “Despite officially writing the Commissioner of Police, Taiwo Lakanu, informing him of our sitting, Governor Fayose, his Special Adviser on Political Matters and Commissioner for Works still led thugs into the premises of the assembly.

“Some of these thugs were arrested by the police while others are still being kept by Fayose inside Government House in Ado Ekiti. We are sure by now he would have ordered Ekiti people to start attacking our business, burning our houses to pervert justice, but we want to assure him that any moment from now, we are going back to Ado Ekiti.

“We have written to Gov Fayose detailing his constitutional breaches. We will investigate and play our role as stated by the constitution.”
He assured that the lawmakers would go ahead with their legislative functions, adding that “these impunity by governor Fayose must not be allowed to continue.”