APC FAULTS EKITI GOVT'S WHITE PAPER ON FAYEMI

APC faults Ekiti govt’s white paper on Fayemi

January 16, 2018Josiah Oluwole

 

The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ekiti State has faulted the state government’s white paper on the probe panel report on the administration of a former governor, Kayode Fayemi, saying it was an effort to embarrass him.

The party said the action by Governor Ayodele Fayose “cannot stand the test of judicial scrutiny in both form and content.”

The white paper was adopted by the Ekiti State executive council on Monday, and its content, chief of which was the ban on Mr. Fayemi from holding office in the next 10 years, was made public.

The judicial commission of inquiry which was set up by Mr. Fayose, found the former governor culpable in the mishandling of funds meant to execute projects during his tenure.

Although Mr. Fayemi had challenged the propriety of the commission and its powers to investigate him in court, the commission continued its assignment. Mr. Fayemi failed to appear before it.

A statement by the APC Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, on Tuesday, described both the panel and white paper as a “kangaroo stunt to nail Fayemi.”

“All Nigerians know that Fayose is recklessly lawless and cannot survive in societies where the law works,” he said.

“His so-called White Paper is not only laughable but also a disgrace to all Ekiti people home and abroad with the way that Fayose has taken ignorance, vendetta and debauchery to a ridiculous level because we knew all along that this is what Fayose wanted to do.

“We had expected his Attorney General, if he knows his onions, to have advised him that only a competent court of law can bar Nigerians from holding public office under the Nigerian Constitution.

“A situation where Fayose assembled PDP members and pliable civil servants as a panel with a strict directive to indict Fayemi at all costs and thereafter issue a White Paper banning him from holding public office cannot hold water in a society where the law works.

“With the way he is conducting himself desperately to stop Fayemi from holding public office, we are convinced that Fayose is seriously going through a political haemorrhage and therefore his resorting to political desperation and unconstitutional means to nail our leader and a serving Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by any means possible.

“Neither Fayose nor Ekiti State Government has the power to bar or prevent Dr Fayemi or any other citizen from holding public office but a competent court of law.

“Such wishful thinking cannot stand judicial scrutiny and we advise Fayose and his pitiable undertakers to read the Supreme Court judgment on Atiku Abubakar in a similar matter.”

Mr. Olatunbosun noted that the attempt by the government white paper to overrule the Supreme Court judgment, which has become a precedence, demonstrated the governor’s “recklessness, lawlessness and display of executive rascality.”

He further asserted that the action of the governor underscored the fact that he viewed Mr. Fayemi as a major political threat that he had to contend with.

He said the white paper would be challenged in court, and expressed confidence that the white paper would be quashed.

“We are not going to lose any sleep over a biased political report by a panel of PDP members set up by a PDP governor for the purpose of framing up our leader as a way of settling political scores,” stated Olatunbosun.

“We also plead with Nigerians to bear with Ekiti people in this moment of our governor’s lawlessness that has negative implication for the integrity of Ekiti people in choosing their leader.

“We also wish to remind Fayose that his immunity will expire in October and must be prepared to resume trials on his many criminal cases, including those pending in various courts.”

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