SAN FRANCISCO, January 04, (THEWILL) – Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose, has petitioned the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, alleging a new plot by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to remove him from office with the connivance of the judiciary.
Addressing journalists in Lagos, Fayose alleged that the plot was hatched at a recent meeting held in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, with several stalwarts and chieftains of the APC in attendance including two former governors of the state and members of the APC, Segun Oni and Dr. Kayode Fayemi, now Minister of Mines and Solid Mineral Development.
He said the target was to silence him as the voice of opposition in the country, because he had bluntly rejected all overtures for him to defect to the ruling APC or stop talking but warned against any plot to destabilise his state saying it would have repercussions.
In a letter he addressed to Justice Onnoghen, Fayose alleged: “Certain APC chieftains were again making subterranean moves to manipulate and compromise a section of the judiciary, particularly some judges, to get through the back door what they failed severally to achieve through the ballot box as well as in open court, even in matters already decided by the Supreme Court.
“The essence of all of this is to silence him as the voice of opposition in the country because he has bluntly rejected all overtures to him to defect into the ruling APC or stop talking.
“At a recent meeting held in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, at which several stalwarts and chieftains of the APC were in attendance, two former governors of the state and members of the APC, namely Segun Oni, a former governor of the state, and Dr. Kayode Fayemi, the Minister of Mines and Solid Mineral Development, boasted that there is no going back on the latest plan to subvert the will of the people of Ekiti freely given.
“Wrest the governance of Ekiti from me at all cost before the expiration of my tenure in October 2018 through an orchestrated but dubious legal process; and thereby render nugatory the sacred mandate of the people given unto me openly and unequivocally when I won in all the 16 local governments of the state while the then incumbent governor, Fayemi recorded zero.
“This time, the plotters of this judicial coup d’etat plan to procure the services of a compromised or malleable judge to get self-serving ‘jankara’ and kangaroo judgments with the intention of having the Supreme Court reverse itself on the June 2014 Ekiti election.
“Oni and Fayemi boastfully claimed that they have enlisted the assurances of Justice Okon Abang and one or two other judges in the concocted fresh suit, hinged on the report of a useless, senseless, and orchestrated military report not known to the electoral law.
“My Lord, take notice of judicial pronouncements by courts of concurrent jurisdiction, as well as the scathing remarks of appellate courts on how Justice Abang has been used in the past by anti-democratic forces to endanger democracy and engage in deleterious miscarriage of justice”,
“My Lord, you have a duty to ensure that no judge under your watch is enlisted into this diabolical act by any rampaging anti-democratic elements.
“The embarrassing incidents currently playing out on our national judicial horizon, with several judicial officers, including serving Justices of the Supreme Court, enmeshed in simulated and orchestrated corruption scandals and indictments by agencies of the federal government because they had refused, at one time or the other, to serve the base interests of the ruling APC government in matters pending before their lordships, have kept us wondering whether the judiciary will succumb to these unwarranted harassments and intimidation meant to coerce and cower it into submission and make this very important and indispensable Third Estate of the Realm subservient to the arbitrary wishes, whims, and caprices of the executive and political desperados,” he said.
Fayose also used the opportunity to speak on national issues as he wondered why nobody had been brought to justice over frequent killings of Christians in southern Kaduna, saying that what the Christians were going through in the hands of Fulani herdsmen calls for concern.
The governor said the country’s electoral process was devoid of violence under Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led federal government unlike the situation today.
“Our electoral process was devoid of violence but today the story is different,” he said.
“Someday, the whole story surrounding the Chibok girls will be told. Everything you read and hear about the girls is a hoax. Everything looks stage-managed. There was nothing about the Chibok girls.
“The girls were camped somewhere and trained. The truth will be told one day.”
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