Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose has raised the alarm that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is planning to remove him from office him before the expiration of his tenure in October 2018.
The governor complained to the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, that APC was planning to compromise the Judiciary and muzzle democracy to oust him from office.
Fayose said the essence of the plot was to silence him as the voice of the opposition, following his “refusal” to decamp to the APC.
Vowing to intensify his criticism of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, he said: “
I refused to be silenced. I will never be silenced.”
The governor told reporters in Lagos that APC chieftains were making moves to manipulate and compromise some judges to remove him through the back door.
He said this followed their failure to displace him through the ballot box, the election petitions tribunal, the Appeal and Supreme courts.
Fayose listed the arrowheads of the alleged plot as former governor Segun Oni and the Minister of Solid Minerals, Kayode Fayemi.
He added: “The duo had boasted that ‘there is no going back on the latest plans to subvert the will of the people of Ekiti freely given, wrest the governance of Ekiti from me at all costs before the expiration of my tenure in October 2018 through orchestrated but dubious legal process. They will thereby render nugatory the sacred mandate given to me when I won in all the 16 local governments while the then incumbent Governor Kayode Fayemi recorded zero.”
The governor accused Oni and Fayemi, who he called governorship aspirants, of having the blessing of the Presidency.
Fayose said: “A concocted fresh suit is being rehashed. It is to be filed against me any moment from now on the same old allegation that have been trashed all the way from the tribunal to the Supreme Court. But, this time, the plotters plan to procure the service of a compromised or malleable judge to get self-serving Jankara and kangaroo judgment with the intention of having the Supreme Court reverse itself on the June 2014 Ekiti election.”
The governor said Oni and Fayemi also boasted that they had assurances from some judges on the proposed suit, which would be hinged on the report of “a useless, senseless and orchestrated military report not known to the electoral law”.
Describing himself as a leader at the receiving end of judicial irresponsibility in the past, the governor urged the Acting Chief Justice to “take note of judicial pronouncements by courts of concurrent jurisdiction and scathing remarks of appellate courts on how a judge had been used in the past by anti-democratic forces to endanger democracy and engage in deleterious miscarriage of justice”.
He said the Judiciary should not succumb to devious plots to undermine its independence and integrity while undermining its good name and hard-earned reputation.
Fayose urged the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria to ensure judges are not enlisted into the “diabolical act” allegedly designed to harass and intimidate him as an opposition leader.
He vowed to remain an opposition voice, adding that a democracy without a virile opposition is a prelude to dictatorship.
