The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has called on the Department of State Services (DSS) to probe an alleged abuse of Judiciary by Governor Ayo Fayose.
The opposition urged the DSS to investigate the alleged use of the courts in Ekiti to perpetrate injustice in collaboration with the executive, including an alleged attempt to dismiss celebrated murder cases without the consent of victims’ families.
The party also urged the security agency to probe the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Owoseni Ajayi, for his alleged roles in the attacks on the court in September 2014 and for allegedly coercing a witness to implicate opposition members standing trial for alleged murder.
The party also charged the DSS to investigate the disclosure by a non- governmental organisation alleging that a High Court judge in the state was conducting a secret trial to free Fayose of complicity in some murder cases.
In a statement by the party’s spokesman, Taiwo Olatunbosun, the APC alleged that Fayose has been shuttling between Ado Ekiti and Port Harcourt in a helicopter, following the raid carried out by the DSS on some judges.
Olatunbosun explained that Fayose conferred with his Rivers State counterpart, Nyesom Wike, in a bid to escape the law.
He said the war against corruption cannot be complete without a searchlight being beamed on the Ekiti judiciary expressing disgust at what it called “wanton threats by Fayose to undermine the integrity of the state judiciary while the judges looked away.”
He said:”A witness under oath said Owoseni induced him to implicate innocent persons in a murder case which could lead to capital punishment if found guilty. The principal witness in the murder case, Gbolahan Okeowo, said Owoseni and Fayose’s media aide, Lere Olayinka, tore his witness statement on oath.That explained the true account of the murder of his Drivers’ Union boss, Aderiye Omolafe, and the two jointly wrote another statement that implicated innocent opposition members and gave it to him for submission to the police.
“The witness said his conscience pricked him and therefore went back to court to swear to a new affidavit telling the truth to free his conscience only for the agents of the state government to start issuing death threats to him through the telephone and he had since fled the state almost two years ago.”
Olatunbosun alleged that it was the same Owoseni prior to his appointment in September 2014 that called Fayose on phone asking him to storm the court with thugs to disrupt the court hearing his perjury case during which a judge was assaulted in order to prevent the judge from ruling against Fayose.
“During this invasion, thugs beat up lawyers and litigants while the presiding judge narrowly escaped, but the assault continued the following day when Justice Adeyeye was beaten up and court records in the Chief Judge’s office were torn.
“Petitions were written to the NJC but nothing was done about this, which further emboldened Owoseni and his cohorts to perpetrate more judicial atrocities at a higher level.’’
Expatiating further, he said: “We wish to draw the attention of the DSS to the circumstances surrounding the Supreme Court judgment on Ekiti gubernatorial petition where the court granted reliefs that Fayose never sought in the case.
“The judgment is suspect and we wish to implore the DSS to unravel the mystery behind this considering recent revelations that some Supreme Court justices might have sacrificed justice for cash.
“This particularly becomes imperative against the backdrop of Fayose’s hysteria since the clampdown on corrupt judges in the last few days, forcing him to start shuttling in helicopter between Ekiti and Port Harcourt to consult with his Rivers State counterpart, who is also facing heat over alleged obstruction of justice by preventing security agents from arresting a suspected corrupt judge.”
He added: “According to the families of the murder victims, the first trial of this case was conducted secretly without the knowledge of the families of the victims of political assassination in 2005 and 2006, records of which were in your office since 2006 after President Olusegun Obasanjo raised SSS panel to investigate political murders in Ekiti State.
“To forestall further investigation of the matter, secret trials were being conducted with active connivance of an Ekiti High Court judge, who first struck out the case for want of diligence prosecution.
“It was at the point of relisting the case for fresh hearing through an affidavit by one Kunle Adetowubo &Co dated June 28, 2016 (in suit No HAD/2c/ 2007 in the motion on notice HAD/71cm/2016) for outright dismissal of the case that the plot leaked, and all these without consulting the families of the deceased who were crying for justice for their breadwinners who were cruelly murdered by suspected agents of the governor.”