Ekiti State
Governor Ayo Fayose has raised the alarm that the All Progressives Congress
(APC) is planning to remove him from office him before the expiration
of his
tenure in October 2018.
The governor
complained to the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen,
that APC was planning to compromise the Judiciary and muzzle democracy to oust
him from office.
Fayose said
the essence of the plot was to silence him as the voice of the opposition,
following his “refusal” to decamp to the APC.
Vowing to
intensify his criticism of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, he said: “I
refused to be silenced. I will never be silenced.”
The governor
told reporters in Lagos that APC chieftains were making moves to manipulate and
compromise some judges to remove him through the back door.
He said this
followed their failure to displace him through the ballot box, the election
petitions tribunal, the Appeal and Supreme courts.
Fayose listed
the arrowheads of the alleged plot as former governor Segun Oni and the
Minister of Solid Minerals, Kayode Fayemi.
He added: “The
duo had boasted that ‘there is no going back on the latest plans to subvert the
will of the people of Ekiti freely given, wrest the governance of Ekiti from me
at all costs before the expiration of my tenure in October 2018 through orchestrated
but dubious legal process. They will thereby render nugatory the sacred mandate
given to me when I won in all the 16 local governments while the then incumbent
Governor Kayode Fayemi recorded zero.”
The governor
accused Oni and Fayemi, who he called governorship aspirants, of having the
blessing of the Presidency.
Fayose said:
“A concocted fresh suit is being rehashed. It is to be filed against me any
moment from now on the same old allegation that have been trashed all the way
from the tribunal to the Supreme Court. But, this time, the plotters plan to
procure the service of a compromised or malleable judge to get self-serving
Jankara and kangaroo judgment with the intention of having the Supreme Court
reverse itself on the June 2014 Ekiti election.”
The governor
said Oni and Fayemi also boasted that they had assurances from some judges on
the proposed suit, which would be hinged on the report of “a useless, senseless
and orchestrated military report not known to the electoral law”.
Describing
himself as a leader at the receiving end of judicial irresponsibility in the
past, the governor urged the Acting Chief Justice to “take note of judicial
pronouncements by courts of concurrent jurisdiction and scathing remarks of
appellate courts on how a judge had been used in the past by anti-democratic
forces to endanger democracy and engage in deleterious miscarriage of justice”.
He said the
Judiciary should not succumb to devious plots to undermine its independence and
integrity while undermining its good name and hard-earned reputation.
Fayose urged
the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria to ensure judges are not enlisted into the
“diabolical act” allegedly designed to harass and intimidate him as an
opposition leader.
He vowed to
remain an opposition voice, adding that a democracy without a virile opposition
is a prelude to dictatorship.
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