You are chasing shadows, APC tells those seeking Fayemi’s disqualification

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has described as voyage of “wasteful move”, those seeking the disqualification of its governorship candidate in the July 14, 2018 election, Dr Kayode Fayemi.


It said rather than dissipating energy on a matter that had long been settled by the Supreme Court, the litigants should have concentrated on the July 14governorship election.

The All People’s Party (APP) had filed a lawsuit praying the court to disqualify Fayemi from contesting the July 14 poll on grounds of his indictment by the Judicial Panel of Inquiry set up by Governor Ayodele Fayose to probe his administration.

Fayemi has since gone to court seeking disbandment of the panel on grounds of partisanship of members, explaining that members of the panel are Fayose’s appointees over whom he exercises authority.

The Minister of Mines and Steel Development said Fayose’s action amounted to an accuser also acting as a judge in his own case.

But reacting to APP’s application, APC Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, said it would amount to a wasteful move to approach a lower court to upturn the ruling of the Supreme Court in similar cases that had been settled as precedents in election qualification dispute.

Arguing that APP’s application was being teleguided by “unseen hands” to frustrate Fayemi from contesting the election, Olatunbosun said, “It will amount to futility to file this matter before a lower court after the Supreme Court had ruled in similar cases involving former Vice President Atiku Abubakar versus INEC and former Governor Ibrahim Shekarau of Kano State versus Senator Rabiu Kwakwanso when the highest court in the land ruled that no White Paper or indictment by any tribunal or commission, except the courts, can bar Nigerians from contesting election.

“But we have since discovered that the common enemy of Ekiti people is behind the sponsorship of the litigation to cause distraction for our party’s candidate, Dr Fayemi, who is poised to win the July 14 election.

“We will not be troubled by this needless distraction because our party, with its development blue print that will be sold across the state, is determined to win the July 14 election so that Ekiti State can be on her feet again for the challenges of rebuilding the state that has been bastardised by Governor Fayose in the last three and half years.”

Specifically accusing Fayose of masterminding the lawsuit to cause distraction, Olatunbosun said:

“Fayose has been trying all tricks to ensure that APC fails to win  the July 14 election but he will fail in all.

“We hereby serve notice that the years of Fayose’s shenanigans are over for our party led by Dr Fayemi to come on board to repair the damage that Fayose has wrought on Ekiti State.

“Social security scheme for Ekiti elderly people is coming back; Fayemi will restore local council development areas, YCAD, Volunteer Corps, urban renewal, free health for the indigent and nursing mothers, free health, industrialisation and tourism, among other life-lifting programmes that Fayose has cancelled and replaced with self-serving programmes that benefit only him and his family members.

“The in-coming government to be led by Fayemi will be people-oriented administration that will take the welfare of all Ekiti people as a priority instead of the present government that was designed by Fayose to profit himself alone and members of his family.”

Olatunbosun urged Ekiti people not to be swayed by lies being sold them by Fayose to put them in perpetual slavery, noting that the governor had never fulfilled any of its campaign promises to address their problems.

He said: “Fayose has started deceiving teachers, local government workers and workers generally that Fayemi will sack them if he wins the governorship election.

“This is pure lie from a man that traffics  in lies as a state policy, as Fayemi had repeatedly said that he will not sack any worker and we wish to counsel Ekiti people and workers in particular to shake themselves off from the shackles of slavery that Fayose has put them through which he has been deceiving them into the life of misery via unpaid salaries, cancellation of life-support programmes and unemployment in the last three and half years while he regularly picks his monthly N300m security vote and monthly N90m “sundry expenses” while workers, pensioners and political office holders are being owed between six and 10 months salary arrears.”