Tag: Fayose

EKITI State governor-elect Mr. Ayodele Fayose has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of trying to obtain judgment through the backdoor to truncate his inauguration on October 16 and install the Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly as acting governor.

Fayose, who disclosed this at a media briefing at his Magodo, Lagos residence yesterday, said the target of the APC, through Justice Segun Ogunyemi, was to obtain a jankara (backdoor) judgment and install the Speaker under the pretext that he (Fayose) was not qualified to contest the June 21 governorship election.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate said it was curious that Justice Ogunyemi, who was forced to stop court proceedings by suspected party thugs recently, delivered the judgment on preliminary objections in the morning.

He added that the judge was going to proceed to hear the substantive suit and deliver judgment the same day.

But the thugs disrupted the court proceedings in Ado Ekiti, the state capital and chased away the judge and lawyers from court room with dangerous weapons.

Fayose said the events in Ekiti State showed that certain interests were being represented and that some judicial officers are being compromised.

The governor-elect, who was supported by former Deputy Governor Abiodun Olujimi during the briefing, said the E-11, an association of professionals of Ekiti State origin, had instituted the case against him two weeks before the June 21 election, claiming that he was not qualified to contest the polls.

He argued that it appeared as if the judge suddenly woken from a slumber and wanted to rush the case to represent certain interests.

His words: “Will it not interest you to know that in less than 24 hours, the judge has turned in the case file. This same judge had adjourned this matter for more than three months. I have been elected for well over three months now. The matter came almost two weeks before my election. But suddenly the judge just woke up from a slumber, to want to rush a case to represent certain interest.”

The governor-elect noted that it was regrettable that the process in court was disrupted.

He added: “It’s unfortunate. But don’t forget that the average man on the streets knows what they want and they are equally more enlightened than before, when somebody would just come, pay a judge somewhere for a backdoor judgment, to stall a process, to steal people’s mandate.”

Fayose added that he and his party was not opposed to trials. “But we want trials done through due process. What is the hurry for this judge? What is his interest?” he queried.

He alleged that the Chief Judge of Ekiti State was an interested party in the matter. “We have been told that he wants to assign the matter to himself. He is a clear member of the E-11; the petitioners. We want a judge who is ready to carry out his assignment as a judge; who is ready to respect the Constitution of Nigeria, to try matters by being fair to all concerned and be accountable to Nigerians,” he said.

Fayose enjoined the authorities at the judicial and executive level, to beam the searchlight on Ekiti and look beyond the propagandas of the political parties.

He said he had just arrived from an overseas trip on Tuesday night and that he decided to state his own side of what was going on because of its political implication.

Court assumes power to try case

Panicky lawyers, litigants and officials ran out of the court room, screaming as scores of thugs hurled missiles at them.

Some ran into their offices and shut their doors; others hid under tables, away from the rampaging thugs.

The police, apparently overwhelmed by the violence, looked helpless as windows were smashed and furniture broken.

That was the scene yesterday at the High Court in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, where Mr. Justice Isaac Ogunyemi ruled that the court had jurisdiction to hear the integrity case against Mr. Ayodele Fayose, the governor-elect and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the June 21 election.

The hoodlums yanked off branches of a tree within the court premises to lash perceived opposition figures at the proceedings, which had got half-way before Mr. Justice Ogunyemi sought a brief break to resume sitting at noon.

The hoodlums, some of whom had earlier engaged the security officials in the courtroom in arguments over what they saw as impartiality, said the security agents barred their party men from entering the courtroom and sitting down while the hearing lasted but allowed the opposition.

The argument soon snowballed into full scale confrontation. People were shouting and people perceived to be obstructing the thugs’ aspirations were dragged on the courtroom’s floor and dealt blows, using all manner of objects.

Judges, Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs), lawyers, journalists, court officials and magistrates ran for dear lives, hiding in offices, court registries, under chairs, tables, other places and objects which could serve as temporary hideouts, as the hoodlums assaulted defenceless people.

As thugs went from office to office to seek out perceived opposition members who they dealt with without resraint, the police, who thinned both in number and significance, watched helplessly. Shots were fired by those no one could ascertain but these could not deter the rampaging band who had reduced the court rooms to a rendezvous of mayhem and unrest.

Mr. Justice Ogunyemi became a target of the hoodlums, who openly condemned his ruling.

They sang songs in Yoruba to condemn the said ruling and threatened to deal with him (Mr. Justice Ogunyemi) if accessible. The intervention of a special group of about six officers from the Riot Squad however assured a safe escape for Mr. Justice Ogunyemi, who all along had been holed up in his office. His (Mr. Justice Ogunyemi’s) escape around 12:55 pm effectively halted proceedings for the day.

Mr. Justice Ogunyemi had declared that he had jurisdiction to entertain the cases of the Citizens Popular Party (CPP) and that of Adeniyi Ajakaye and others, which challenged the eligibility of Mr. Ayo Fayose to contest the June 21 election.

In a ruling on Fayose’s and PDP’s preliminary objection, Mr. Justice Ogunyemi maintained that the respondent had not judiciously discharged the responsibility under the law of evidence to furnish the court with sufficient evidence upon which the relief sought by the defendant applicant could be based.

Mr. Justice Ogunyemi also declared both the CPP and the PDP as non juristic persons who could not sue or be sued. He, however, submitted that striking out the names of the second claimant and second defendant did not affect the relief sought by the claimant on eligibility pursuant to Order 13, Rule 16 (1) of the High Court Civil Procedure Rules of Ekiti State.

He also dismissed the application of the respondent, which challenged his ruling of June 6 in an ex-parte application on the abridgment of time within which the respondent could file his reply, declaring that the said order the defendant sought to set aside was not obtained fraudulently as contended by the defendants.

Mr. Justice Ogunyemi dismissed PDP’s application, saying the court cannot set aside its June 6 ruling and that the time frame had been overtaken by events, which he (Justice Ogunyemi) maintained had rendered the whole exercise a mere academic exercise.

The Ekiti State government condemned the attack on judges, lawyers , litigants and workers.

The government, which viewed the invasion of the hoodlums believed to be supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as “an unwarranted desecration of the temple of justice”, also blamed the escalation of the crisis on the nonchalant attitude displayed by policemen at the court premises.

The government, in a statement said it amounted to a barbaric act of epic proportion for a group of people to gang up to invade a court in a bid to avert hearing in a case brought for determination before a judge.

This attempt to subvert the rule of law and throw the Ekiti into a state of confusion and  violence is most condemnable.

It urged security agencies to ensure that the perpetrators of the heinous act are brought to book.

The government said it would do everything possible to ensure that the full weight of the law is meted out to anyone found perpetrating violence in the state just as it assured members of the public of adequate security for their lives and properties.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State yesterday told the Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, that the governor-elect, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, cannot serve as governor due to his impeachment by the House of Assembly in 2006.

The party, in a petition deposed to by its lead counsel, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), said Fayose allegedly submitted a fake Higher National Diploma (HND) certificate, said to have been obtained from The Polytechnic, Ibadan, to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The party is challenging INEC’s declaration of Fayose as the winner of the June 21 election on the grounds that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate did not have the required number of valid votes.

The APC accused INEC of electronically rigging the election in Fayose’s favour.

Other grounds given by the party include “excessive militarisation, arrest and intimidation” of some of its members by security agencies.

The PDP brought 35 witnesses to the tribunal.

In its preliminary objection deposed to by its lead counsel, Yusuf Ali (SAN) and filed by the party’s State Legal Adviser, Mr Kolapo Kolade, the PDP urged the tribunal to nullify the APC’s pleas due to the “non-joinder and mis-joinder of parties in the case”.

Kolade said: “The APC is claiming that Fayose did not score the highest number of votes and that his election should be nullified and Governor Kayode Fayemi, who was not joined as a petitioner, be declared winner. This is a case of non-joinder.

“Then what is the reason behind the joining of the chief of Defence Staff as a respondent in this case? The military did not partake in the electoral process and this is a clear case of mis-joinder.”

He urged the court to strike out the petition, saying some of the issues raised, particularly the certificate matter, was “contrary to “the principle of estoppels”.

Kayode said the controversy about Fayose’s HND certificate was resolved at an Appeal Court in Ibadan in 2003 and gazetted in the court’s records.

The hearing continues.