Ekiti assembly: Obayemi writes Fayose on court victory

• Demands swearing-in as member

Three months after the Federal High Court sitting in Ado Ekiti declared him the rightful member-elect of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Mr Toyin Obayemi has written a letter to Governor Ayodele Fayose to prevail on the Assembly Speaker, Kola Oluwawole, to carry out the order for him to represent Ado Ekiti Constituency 1.

Obayemi, in the letter to the governor, which was made available to reporters in Ado Ekiti, on Monday, expressed regrets that members of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had allegedly been “erecting stumbling blocks against his inauguration as Assembly member.”

The Federal High Court, Ado Ekiti, had, on July 4, removed Musa Arogundade as the lawmaker representing the constituency and ordered that Obayemi be sworn in, after saying he was the valid candidate for the April 11, 2015 House of Assembly election.

The court, which held that Arogundade fraudulently secured an Abuja Federal High Court order to have his name substituted with that of Odunayo Talabi, who came first in the November 29, 2014 PDP Assembly primaries for Ado 1, had ordered that Obayemi, who came second, was the valid candidate for the April 11, 2015 election.

But both the House of Assembly and the PDP in the state had variously reacted that the matter is still subject of litigation following an appeal filed against the ruling.

The House of Assembly, in a recent statement on the matter, denied that the Speaker was holding the court in contempt, saying that since the matter was already a subject of appeal at an appellate court, it couldn’t act on it.

Obayemi in the letter, which was also copied to the Ewi of Ado Ekiti, Oba Adeyemo Adejugbe and eminent lawyer, Chief Afe Babalola, said the refusal of the PDP-dominated Assembly to admit him as a member after a court order is portraying the party in bad light.