The Ekiti State governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has denied media reports that he took the acting national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Victor Giadom, to the Presidential Villa to meet President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to the media reports, Fayemi was said to be at the Aso Rock Villa with Giadom but was reportedly stopped from seeing President Buhari.
Fayemi, in a statement on Wednesday by his Chief Press Secretary, Yinka Oyebode, accused one of the president’s aides of sponsoring the said report.
The chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum said: “In setting the record straight, we hereby state unequivocally that Governor Fayemi had no plan or reason to see the president on Tuesday afternoon as maliciously presented in the newspaper’s report.
“The governor had earlier seen the president at noon in company of three of his colleagues – Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu (Kebbi), Governor Simon Lalong (Plateau) and Governor Badaru Abubakar (Jigawa). Also present at that meeting were the Chief of Staff to the President, Professor Ibrahim Gambari and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami.
“The Ekiti State governor was never denied any opportunity to see President Buhari as he did not ask to see the president and neither did he go with Chief Giadom.
“We are aware of surreptitious efforts to demonise and blackmail Governor Fayemi on account of the challenges the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is undergoing. We have tried not to join issues with the barrage of falsehood, personality attacks and campaign of calumny against Governor Fayemi on social media in the last two weeks because it is not in Dr Fayemi’s character to engage in unintelligent rabble rousing in the media.
“As a principled democrat, Dr Fayemi is committed to fighting for the principles of democracy within the political party he laboured with other notable Nigerians to birth. It is normal for political leaders to be in disagreement, but it should not lead to campaigns of calumny based on falsehood.”
Speaking further, Fayemi added that “the falsehood, we gathered reliably, was fabricated by a senior aide of the Presidency and planted in some sections of the media, after it was rejected by some State House correspondents, who rebuffed the aide for the misleading and malicious story.
and then