Ekiti Demands Action On Detained Officials In EFCC Custody

Ekiti State governor Ayodele Fayose

The Ekiti State government has asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to either release unconditionally or try its Commissioner for Finance, Chief Toyin Ojo and the Accountant-General, Mrs. Yemisi Owolabi, who have been in the custody of the anti-graft agency since September 28.

The State Executive Council (SEC), after its meeting yesterday in Ado-Ekiti, condemned their continued detention without trial, noting that the development was a “classic abuse of power and a witch-hunt by pseudo democrats in Abuja to diabolically incapacitate the state government.”

The Commissioner for Information, Youth and Sports Development, Lanre Ogunsuyi, who addressed newsmen at end of deliberations, said the executive council, after its fifth emergency meeting, saw the arrest as “an aberration that once again portrays the Federal Government as incapable of understanding the best democratic ethos.”

He claimed that the arrest was “in violation of a subsisting ruling of a court of competent jurisdiction restraining the supposed anti-graft body from inviting or arresting officials of the state.”

The commissioner, therefore, called on EFCC to “respect the rule of law by abiding with the subsisting court ruling, as the options available to the agency was to either grant the arrested state officials administrative bail or charge them to court if they had breached the law.”

The state government alleged that it was ironic that the same EFCC had allegedly “ignored repeated petitions of the state government to investigate and prosecute the previous administration in the state.”

The SEC accused the commission of “chasing shadows and hindering the efforts of the present administration at correcting the anomalies and making life more meaningful for the people of the state.”