The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State, in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, cautioned against the planned arrest of the former secretary of the People’s Democratic Party in the state, Tope Aluko, warning that his arrest could degenerate into a breakdown of law and order.
He said it was regrettable that the court was so much in a hurry to grant a warrant of arrest requested by Mr. Fayose who once stormed the court with thugs to assault a presiding judge sitting over his own alleged perjury case.
The statement:
“The impression being created by the court that Governor Fayose is a law unto himself or that he has the court in his pocket, is worrisome against the backdrop of the prostrate attitude of the court when the same man that is slamming a perjury case against an official of his own party stormed the court with thugs to sack the court sitting over his own perjury case,” Mr. Olatunbosun said.
“In that instance, Fayose led thugs to sack the court and beat up a judge, tearing his coat before heading to the Chief Judge’s office to tear into shreds court records in his office and then beat up the Chief Judge’s secretary.
“We are worried that the court that went to sleep during that national embarrassment suddenly became alive to deliver a ruling on a warrant of arrest request against the governor’s opponent within minutes, even though the same court was handicapped when the temple of justice was sacked by the same man now in need of court’s protection from investigation into the treasonable offence that brought him to power.”
Mr. Olatunbosun noted that the haste with which the court came to the aid of the governor was provocative, saying the impression was that Mr. Fayose’s bid to block transparency and truth in the investigation of the election fraud in the state was being backed by the judiciary’s assistance to hound Aluko into jail to prevent him from further expose on the election fraud.
“We would have expected the court to ask for the evidence of perjury in what Aluko said on Channels television because to our knowledge, he did not speak on oath on the television programme,” he argued.
“Conversely, if it is on the basis of Aluko’s testimony at the tribunal where he swore on oath that he is being hounded for arrest, we can then assume that his testimony at the tribunal is not true and so he must face a perjury case.
“Even though we know that the problem between Fayose and Aluko is purely an internal problem of PDP, it is nevertheless an attempt to cover the truth in the investigation of the election crime that deprived our candidate, Dr Kayode Fayemi, a victory in the June 21, 2014 governorship election.”
He noted that APC would resist any attempt to block transparent investigation of the election fraud, contending that if Aluko must be investigated for perjury, then other PDP members that testified at the tribunal, including the governor, must submit themselves to the charge of perjury since they presented the same evidence at the tribunal.
“Attempt to arrest Aluko while leaving out other people that presented same evidence at the tribunal appearances will be considered as a witch hunt being encouraged by the court to hound Aluko into jail to block transparency in the investigation of Ekiti poll fraud that brought Fayose to power.
“We hereby sound a note of warning that never shall we allow Fayose a free reign as he did when he was using thugs to commit illegality, including hounding 19 APC lawmakers out of Ekiti State for six months and the judiciary closed the courtrooms for months to deny APC that had several cases in courts justice.
“Our party will respond with equal measure if any attempt is being promoted to block transparency in the investigation of the crime that denied our candidate a deserved victory while the man at the centre of criminally using the military and illegal printing of INEC materials to win election is being unduly protected by the same court that could not defend itself when Fayose spat at the wigs and gowns and desecrated the entire temple of justice.”
