Call for Ekiti APC chairman’s arrest: Fayose jittery — APC

THE All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has described Governor Ayodele Fayose’s call on the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to arrest the party’s chairman, Olajide Awe, as a deliberate plot to distract the attention of Ekiti people from various criminal allegations against the governor.

A statement by the publicity secretary of Ekiti APC, Chief Taiwo Olatunbosun, on Sunday, said “the party would have kept quiet over the governor’s call, but decided to react for the purpose of the innocent public who had become victims of Fayose’s ‘unconscionable mischief’ to get away with his many misdeeds.”

Olatunbosun claimed that “several of APC members listed for arrest were victims of trumped-up charges to take them out of circulation,” saying “of interest was Awe, who was not in his town on the day that violence that led to the death one man erupted.”

Olatunbosun said in the statement: “This is the same way Sola Adenijo, Olanbiwonnu Metilo, Niyi Adedipe and several others were implicated over Omolafe Aderiye’s murder and they are still in jail over offences they knew nothing about just because Fayose had the support of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s lawless administration to brutalise the opposition in Ekiti State.

“The personal assistant to the late Omolafe, Gbolahan Okeowo, had since approached the court, swearing to an affidavit that he was forced by Fayose’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Ajayi Owoseni and media aide, Lere Olayinka, to implicate the innocent men in the murder of his boss,” Olatunbosun explained.

He berated the governor for “the hasty manner he urged the police to arrest APC members” and alleged that “his action could not be unconnected with reports that he was manipulating other murder cases involving him in courts to get a clean bill from all murder allegations in order to justify trials of APC members over false accusation of murder.”

He said “all the cases he listed in his letter to the IGP are already in court, while some of the accused had been granted bail.”

He also alleged that the governor was “up to a mischief to cover his tracks,” saying “it is evidently clear that Fayose is trying to cover something, but we are assuring him that no matter how much he tries, the long arms of the law will catch up with him and his team.

“Fayose is looking for cheap distraction now that APC is asking for prosecution of his partners in crime, particularly the criminals in his government.”

Last Thursday, the Ekiti State government said it had written to the IGP and demanded that the APC chairman, Chief Jide Awe be arrested and brought to book for a murder in which he was allegedly involved, while also calling for the prosecution of 13 other members of the party it alleged were wanted for murder.