Posted by By TAIWO AMODU on
Reprieve is finally on the way for former governor of Ekiti state, Ayodele Fayose, over the damning serial criminal allegations levelled against him, which culminated in his removal from office as the Ekiti State governor, Saturday Sun can authoritatively revealed.
• Confirms murder allegations were politically-motivated
Reprieve is finally on the way for former governor of Ekiti state, Ayodele Fayose, over the damning serial criminal allegations levelled against him, which culminated in his removal from office as the Ekiti State governor, Saturday Sun can authoritatively revealed.
A police investigation report dated, 26th March, 2008 prepared by Columbus .O. Okaro, Commissioner of Police, Legal/ Prosecution Section ‘D' Department [FCID], Abuja and sent to the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro by Sir, K.Z. Dudaki, Deputy Inspector General of Police, [FCID], has finally exonerated the former Ekiti governor of the grave criminal allegations.
The reported deposed to in an affidavit before the Court of Appeal Ilorin by one Ejofor Obiora, a police officer attached to the Legal Section of the Force Criminal Investigation Department, among other things, clear Fayose of any complicity in the death, in May 2005, of one Tunde Omojola during the councillorship bye-election in Ifaki Ekiti.
Fayose was accused, among other charges, of the attempted murder of former chairman of the Ado- Ekiti local government, Hon. Taiye Fasuba; the cold blooded murder of Omojola and the murder of Dr. Ayo Daramola, World Bank Consultant and governorship aspirant on the platform of the PDP - offences, allegedly committed in collaboration with his cronies. He was also accused of the murder of two students at the College of Education, Ikere Ekiti.
Genesis of Police investigation
Saturday Sun investigations revealed that buoyed by his innocence over the serial criminal charges which led to his inglorious exit from office, Ayodele Fayose had instructed his lawyer, Mr. Owoseni Ajayi, to file a petition to the Inspector General of Police, pleading his innocence and submitting that the allegations were politically motivated - a submission which informed the Inspector General of Police to order comprehensive investigations of the allegations.
Police uncovers tissues of lies
According to the report of Commissioner of Police, Columbus Okaro, Police investigations revealed that ‘the death of the two students of the College of Education at Ikere Ekiti was as a result of the clash between two rioting students and the mobile policemen sent to restore peace and order to the community' While exonerating Fayose, it however submitted that two aides of the former governor were charged to court and are at present standing trial for the offence.
The so-called attempted murder of Hon. Taiye Fasuba, the police investigating team uncovered, was another macabre design to paint Fayose in crimson in the eyes of Ekiti people. The police made reference to the arraignment of one ASP Gbenga Joseph and some OPC members, before the High Court of Justice in Ekiti and their subsequent discharge for want of evidence. Police also restated the recant of one Prince Adeniyi Adedipe, ‘who swore to an affidavit at the Federal High Court in Lagos, alleging that he was part of a grand design which included some elders in Ekiti to implicate Dr. Peter Fayose and his aides, with a view to removing Fayose from office'. Adeniyi Adedipe was said to have equally petitioned the Inspector General of Police which conducted its investigation and other accused persons in prisons corroborated Adeniyi's confession.
Dr Ayo Daramola: the final onslaught
The murder of Dr. Ayo Daramola, World Bank Consultant and a gubernatorial hopeful in Ekiti State, was one that generated uproar and condemnation, from all and sundry. Fingers of scorn were pointed in the direction of Ayodele Fayose who tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to convince people driven by emotions that he had no hand in the murder.
Nigerians did not believe him, because he allegedly opposed the aspiration of a contender for the race, who fell to the hot leads of men of the underworld. Predictably, Fayose's aides were also picked up for the murder. Commissioner of Police, Columbus Okaro in his report however revealed that, in the course of the police search for the killers of Daramola, a call put through to the mobile phone of the deceased, taken away by his killers was traced to a lady who happened to be a girl friend to a member of the gang of robbers that shot Daramola!
Okaro revealed in his heart- rending report that rather than follow the lead of armed robbery, the authority compelled one Taiye Olanipekun, the notorious robber who gave Daramola's handset to his girlfriend to implicate Ayo Fayose's aides.
‘Olanipekun initially confessed that he was hired by Chief Dayo Okondo and Adegoke Olatunji, known aides of Peter Ayodele Fayose to murder for a fee and that Chief Dayo Okondo promised them buses, if they succeeded in killing Daramola but he could not however identify them in an identification parade organised for the purpose…. In a subsequent encounter at Ado Ekiti prison, Taiye Olanipekun alleged that some influential citizens of Ado Ekiti promised him the sum of two million naira if he could implicate Chief Dayo Okondo and Adegoke Olatunji as the sponsors of the gang that killed Daramola. He asserted that he was shown the photographs of Chief Dayo Okondo and Adegoke Olatunji with a view to identifying them in a yet to be conducted identification parade. This, according to him, accounted for his inability to identify either Chief Dayo Okondo or Olatunji during the identification parade".
Omojola as Fayose's sore point
Police investigations revealed that while Fayose's political opponents tried, albeit, unsuccessfully to nail him on all the other charges, his presence at Ifaki Ekiti where Tunde Omojola lost his life during a councillorship bye-election was bandied to substantiate his culpability. A fracas between the PDP and the NCP supporters during the election when the candidate of National Conscience Party for the councillorship seat, Suleiman Labaika was said to be coasting home to victory had led to severe beating on both sides, with the NCP suffering a casualty: the unfortunate death of Tunde Omojola, an associate of the NCP candidate.
Police findings and recommendations
Commissioner of Police, Columbus Okaro, as part of his observations, submitted in his findings that there was serious breach of the peace on account of the struggle by both parties to win the bye- election; that the importation of the members of the Odua Peoples Congress by the NCP candidate complicated the security situation in Ifaki Ekiti.
While he established that the presence of Ayo Fayose, then serving governor enabled the PDP in Ifaki to perpetrate massive rigging that led to the loss of the NCP candidate, it however exonerated the former governor over the death of Tunde Omojola.
'From the foregoing, there's therefore no evidence linking Dr. Ayo Fayose with the murder of Tunde Omojola, even though Dr. Ayo Fayose was in Ifaki Ekiti as the governor and as the chief security officer of the state on that day the deceased was killed'
According to the police findings, much of the accusations later levelled against Fayose might never have arisen if the NCP candidate had been declared winner of the councillorship bye-election in Ifaki. 'The loss of Suleiman Labaika became the tonic he and his supporters needed to implicate Ayo Fayose and his aides in the unfortunate death of Tunde Omojola", the police report noted, adding: 'And the death of Tunde Omojola became a political weapon in the hands of the Ekiti Eleven and other elite from Ekiti State in the campaign to remove Ayo Fayose from office".
The Police further recommended that the trial of Fayose's aides, standing trial for the offence should continue.
Okondo, et al culpable?
With police exonerating Fayose in its report, it is unlikely that his aides standing trial would be convicted, if the report of CP Okaro deposed to in an affidavit by an officer of the same legal department of the Force Criminal Investigation Department is scrutinised.
Okaro has submitted that the only witnesses to the truth in the entire episode in Ifaki Ekiti were the Divisional Police Officer, Ido Osi Division, ASP Digha and Awonuga, the Chief Detail to Ayo Fayose.
‘These people did not see Dr Ayodele Fayose, or any of the accused standing trial for the murder of Tunde Omojola, attack the deceased,' Okaro asserted in his report.