Posted by By RAZAQ BAMIDELE on
Former governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Peter Ayodele Fayose on Monday painted a pathetic picture of how he escaped from the government house in a boot of a rickety car that drove him over 11 kilometres to safety.
Former governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Peter Ayodele Fayose on Monday painted a pathetic picture of how he escaped from the government house in a boot of a rickety car that drove him over 11 kilometres to safety.
Fayose, during an interview on the Silverbird Television programme said he heeded an advice from a close aide of former President Olusegun Obasanjo's caucus, who warned him to escape if he wanted to remain alive.
According to him, there was a plan to shoot him in the leg during the bid to impeach him as Ekiti State governor in 2006 with the excuse that he was struggling with the police.
'I was advised by somebody within Baba's (Obasanjo) caucus that Baba has told them there would be trouble on Monday when they would want to do the impeachment. And that they should shoot me, at least in the leg and say I was struggling with the police. I now realised I should not spend a minute longer at the government house," Fayose disclosed.
To survive, the embattled former governor said, 'I bought about 10 loaves of bread and a lot of satchet of pure water," regretting that 'for 13 days, I did not have my batch.
'The bread grew fungi and I was eating it like that. And there were infections on my body … It took me more than 15 days in hospital thereafter to treat the infection before I finally escaped."
On how he beat the security personnel to escape, the former governor admitted, 'the state security service men were watching me and the police on guard were watching me too," adding 'I was also watching them.
The vocal politician put the security men off guard by dressing in a boxer pant and telling the security men, 'I am expecting some visitors, when they come, tell them to see me upstairs."
Fayose, who said over 11 lorry loads of mobile policemen and an armoured tank had been stationed at the gate of the government house just managed to sneak into a boot of a rickety car through which he escaped.
'I pleaded with the driver of the car to drive me away. He was weeping as he was driving me away. He drove me for 11 kilometres through Arakeji, Ikejille via Okotun, when I got there I changed into the other dress that I brought with me.
'I did not allow anybody to know me. I made sure I removed the SIM card of the driver so that he could not make any call," Fayose revealed as part of his security process.
He blamed his problems on ex-president Obasanjo, while dismissing as fabrications, allegations of corruption and murder levelled against him
Sounding unruffled, Fayose, who said he was a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader in Ekiti State stressed that his travails 'were journeys of a leader of tomorrow," admitting, however, that 'I suffered and that is the bottom line."