As SIEC restricts Fayose, govt officials movement during LG polls

By Rotimi Ojomoyela

The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ekiti State has accused Governor Ayodele Fayose of blackmail, saying his fraudulent and pre-emptive tactics will not stop justice from taking its course in the resolution of the biggest electoral fraud in the history of Nigeria.

The party was responding to the governor’s allegations in his press conference in Lagos, purporting that APC was planning to illegally use the Supreme Court to upturn his mandate in favour of the party.

Publicity Secretary of APC, Taiwo Olatunbosun, said in a statement that Fayose’s alleged fraudulent attempt to draw the support of the international community to the poll fraud was an impish attempt to legitimise fraud, stressing that the same international community had since realized that world leaders were also victims of Fayose and PDP’s fraud by misleading them in Fayose’s electoral victory in Ekiti State.

“Even though the international community declared that Ekiti poll that produced Fayose was fair, the same world leaders have since changed their position after listening to Ekiti poll fraud tape as secretly recorded by Captain Sagir Koli detailing how Fayose and PDP leaders rigged the election, including Fayose himself talking in the tape how he collected INEC soft copies and got them printed to win the election,” Olatunbosun explained.

He added that the governor was running away from his shadow after failed bids to beg President Muhammadu Buhari, who he abuses daily.

“Why did Fayose try to pressurize members of the Military Panel to rescue him? After his emissaries returned empty-handed in their failed bids to achieve their aims, Fayose has now resorted to blackmail, accusing the President of trying to destroy democracy and we wonder who among him and the President is the enemy of democracy,’’  Olatunbosun asked.

The party said no amount of crocodile tears shed from one television house to the other and blackmail of the ruling party would make him escape justice in the resolution of Ekiti State election fraud.

 SIEC restricts Fayose, govt officials’ movt during LG polls

Meantime, as the people in Ekiti State file out for the local government elections on Saturday, December 19, the State Independent Electoral Commission, SIEC, has restricted the movements of Governor Fayose, government officials and the entire Ekiti populace between the hours of 8am and 4pm.

Addressing newsmen in Ado Ekiti yesterday, the Commission Chairman, Justice Kayode Bamisile, also barred women in purdah from participating in the voting.

He said barring those in purdah from voting became imperative because the body won’t deploy card readers for the elections and the only means of identification would be through the Permanent Voter Cards and facial outlook.

He revealed that a total of 7,000 ad hoc staff, comprising of youth corps members and unemployed graduates would be deployed as presiding officers in all the 2,195 polling units where the elections would take place.

Bamisile said the five political parties, including Peoples Democratic Party, KOWA, African People Alliance, United Peoples Party and Peoples Party of Nigeria, would be participating in the polls out of the 24 political parties in the state.

The APC, had earlier boycotted the elections on account of the suit it filed against the composition of SIEC, which Justice Dele Omotoso of the State High Court had struck out on Monday for lack of merit.