APC denies alleged plot to impeach Fayose

All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has reacted to an allegation by Governor Ayodele Fayose that the party was plotting the manipulation of the judiciary to re-open an army panel’s report on the 2014 governorship election in the state, to have his election victory reversed.

 Fayose had in a letter to the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, accused former Governor Segun Oni and Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr Kayode Fayemi, of clandestine moves to coerce the judiciary to use the panel report on the election to reverse his election victory, praying the CJN to resist the move to preserve democracy and integrity of the judiciary.

Olatunbosun said in a statement on Thursday that Fayose was afraid of his own shadow.
APC said Fayose was crying wolf where none existed, saying “there was no meeting where Fayemi and Oni met to boast that he would be removed.”
He said “the governor is only jittery and afraid of the consequences of his many infractions on the law.”
Olatunbosun said: “Fayemi and Oni are too decent and busy in their assignments to engage  in such frivolous boasts that Fayose is accusing them of. Their track records as democrats is there for all to see.
“The same Segun Oni he went to visit at his country home with funfare recently is the same man Fayose is now accusing of plotting to remove him from office.
“Fayemi and Oni would rather busy themselves with the development of Ekiti instead of making Fayose, who has caused much embarrassment to himself and Ekiti people, their topic.”
Noting that no one is deceived by Fayose in crowning himself as the national opposition leader to blackmail the Federal Government if called upon to answer for his alleged crimes against Nigerian state, Olatunbosun said the governor would fail in his latest onslaught on the judiciary and blackmail of the ruling party.
“He believes he is the wisest Nigerian who thinks he can manipulate people’s reasoning and cheat the law, otherwise how can Fayose indulge in that disingenuous allegation that he is being haunted for refusing to join APC when the truth is that APC leaders have been frustrating his pleas to join the party to save his head,” he explained.
“Why is Fayose jittery if he actually  won the election? What will be the role of Mr Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court on the matter that only the Supreme Court can decide?
“Though no case has been filed before the Supreme Court,  if a party feels aggrieved in Ekiti State election matter and decides to urge the Supreme Court to have a second look at the matter after the revelations in Capt Sagir Koli’s audio tape, military reports and confessions by PDP principal leaders who participated in the poll crime, there is no amount of blackmail of the judiciary that will stop such aggrieved party from approaching the court to seek redress no matter how long.”
“By Fayose’s desperate move, it is a sign that he knows what the rest of us do not know and we assure him that he will never escape justice.
“We advise Fayose to face governance and stop running from pillar to post shouting about imaginary attempt to unseat him. He should provide security and make the state safe for all and pay the backlog of arrears of salary and allowances to workers and pensioners with the new bailout of N8.8 billion.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ekiti State, Gboyega Oguntuwase, has decried alleged subterranean moves to remove Mr. Ayodele Fayose as the governor of Ekiti State and said the moves could “lead to a total collapse of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, if eventually carried out.”
Oguntuwase told newsmen in Ado Ekiti on Thursday that a letter written by Governor Fayose to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, on the alleged plot was reasonable and justifiable, saying it was proper so as to forestall the crisis that could follow the alleged move.
He said the letter “was not misdirected since it was reliably gathered that a section of the judiciary was allegedly involved in the evil plot,” and appealed to Justice Onnoghen to “do the needful by  making the third arm of government apolitical to forestall  the country’s judiciary from being desecrated by desperate politicians.”
Oguntuase noted that the alleged plot to remove the governor would “create crisis of monumental proportion that would be difficult for the Nigeria Army to curtail,” saying “Fayose is a man of the people and the opposition leader in the country, who commands enormous followership across the six geopolitical zones of the country.”