Posted by By CHRISTIAN ITA, AKEEB ALARAPE (Ibadan) and HAMEED BODURIN in Osogbo on
The political crisis rocking Ekiti State yesterday boiled over to neighbouring Oyo State when a mob attacked the suspended deputy governor of the state, Mrs. Biodun Olujimi, at an Ekiti stakeholders meeting at D'Rovans Hotel in Ibadan.
•Bloody PDP congresses in Oyo, Osun
The political crisis rocking Ekiti State yesterday boiled over to neighbouring Oyo State when a mob attacked the suspended deputy governor of the state, Mrs. Biodun Olujimi, at an Ekiti stakeholders meeting at D'Rovans Hotel in Ibadan.
This coincided with the killing of at least two persons in the Oyo State capital during the Ward Congress of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). One of them is a supporter of Senator Rasheed Ladoja whose impeachment by Oyo State House of Assembly in January was upturned by the Court of Appeal in Ibadan Wednesday.
At the Ekiti stakeholders meeting, convened at the instance of legal luminary, Chief Afe Babalola, were prominent indigenes of the state like Prof. Babalola Aborishade, Culture and Tourism Minister, Prof. Sam Aluko, Prof. Akin Oyebode, the former state governor, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, Senator Bode Olowoporoku, Mr. Femi Falana, wife of the slain Ayo Daramola, Kemi and Mr. Babafemi Ojudu, Dr. Kayode Fayemi among others.
The pandemonium followed a submission by Olujimi in defence of Ayo Fayose administration. While some people interrupted the suspended deputy governor by hurling abuses at her, some others that she herself identified as the "E11 boys" physically assaulted her.
It took the timely intervention of Chief Babalola's security details to save Olujimi from being lynched.
Trouble
Trouble started when the orgnisers unfolded the agenda of the meeting, which they said was to pick by consensus, a credible candidate and not somebody in the mould of the suspended state governor, Mr. Ayo Fayose, to be the next Ekiti governor.
It was at this point that Olujimi got up to address the meeting. While doing so, she insisted that due credits be given the Fayose administration for "at least bringing about unprecedented physical development of the state."
As soon as she said that, confusion took the centre stage.
Melee
Olujimi's submission did not go down well with some of the dignitaries who surged forward to snatch the microphone from her while a section of the crowd, who still have sympathy for the Fayose administration, also rose in her defense. Some supporters of Fayose argued that since the suspended governor left Ado-Ekiti most of the street-lights usually powered with generators by Fayose have not been functioning.
The ensuing melee almost truncated the meeting until the Chairman of the day, Prof. Aluko, ordered Olujimi to leave the venue.
The suspended Deputy Governor was subsequently escorted out of the meeting by some policemen, who accompanied some of the dignitaries to the meeting, before progress could be made.
Olujimi's ordeal
Narrating her ordeal in a telephone conversation with Sunday Sun, Olujimi said: " I was attacked in front of Chief Afe Babalola by the E 11 boys. They called a stakeholders meeting. They even sent me a text on my phone and I said I would appear and listen. I heard them talk about falsehood, they were even asking people to stand, people who posed as policemen and EFCC men when the impeachment was on. And I thought that was not the best. So, I said I would talk and give them facts and not fiction because they had falsified everything."
Continuing, she said: "I got up to talk and greeted the elders. I said I was not there to assault their sensibilities and that I was not there to say that the government was 100 percent good but there was only one thing you could not take away from that government. The last ten years put together, the last three years witnessed physical development in Ekiti. And that was all.
"They rose to attack me, Chief Ojo Falegon was calling me names. It was terrible. Chief Falegon was on the high table with Hon. Friday Aderemi (the supended Speaker who was "Acting Governor" for three days). They were hailing him as ‘The Governor!". When he was introduced they shouted ‘The Governor.'
"That is the naivety of the people and the apparent disrespect for democratic norms and principles. You should have seen all of them, it was terrible. It shows how terrible they can be and those are the people that are purporting to hold the conscience of Ekiti. They are even saying they want to propose who would be the next governor, who would be senator. Femi Falana was there, Babafemi Ojudu was even the master of ceremony."
Babalola, Falana's call
In their separate speeches at the meeting, both Afe Babalola and Femi Falana, called for a probe of the "killer squad" said to be on rampage in the state, their sponsors as well as their prosecution.
Afe Babalola particularly bemoaned what he described as the slow spate of development in Ekiti, especially in the areas of agriculture, roads, industry, infrastructural facilities, calling for total overhauling of the situation for the sake of prosterity.
He also called for the investigation of roles of the police in the problem of Ekiti State, the prosecution of the killers of Babatunde Omojola and Dr.Ayo Daramola, as well as unmasking those behind the assassination attempt on his life, that of Falana, Fasuba and a host of others.
In his own speech, Falana called on the Sole Administrator of the state, Major General Adetunji Olurin, to recover all stolen wealth of the state and the prosecution of the "killer squad" within the state.
Falana, nonetheless, disclosed that "all the senior lawyers in Ekiti State have demanded for the removal of Justice Bamisile as the Chief Judge for abusing his office and exposing Ekiti State to unwarranted embarrassment."
Communique
At the end of the meeting at around 3PM, Prof. Oyebode read out the communiqué. The highlights include: "No more shall the people of Ekiti allow anybody without proven character or of reputable ancestry to lead them; that age and experience will be considered before anybody is elected to lead; that all Ekiti people should rise up to be involved in the electoral processes by registering and be prepared to vote and contest elected offices."
The meeting also resolved that a committee be set up to see to the ratification of the resolutions and fashion a 10-year blueprint for the progress and development of Ekiti State, and that another summit of the Ekiti indigenes would be convened in Ekiti in a forthnight.
Fayose reacts
But in a swift reaction yesterday evening, Governor Ayo Fayose dismissed the Ekiti Stateholders as nothing but a conclave of his political opponents who, therefore, cannot purport to be speaking for the people of Ekiti State.
The suspended governor spoke through his Information Commissioner, Barrister Gbeyega Oguntuase.
In a statement made available to Sunday Sun, Fayose said it was laughable that the same people who sponsored and orchestrated the crisis that led to the imposition of emergency rule in the state are now talking about charting a new course for the state.
According to him, "Indeed, some of them played highly prominent roles in the infamous impeachment saga and the subsequent introduction of a state of emergency. These same men are the ring leaders of the so-called Ekiti Stakeholders. The coming together of such people who are intensely politically partisan cannot produce any equitable and reasonable conclusions. Because of their bais, hatred and political interests, they cannot do justice to matters on the ground in Ekiti State.
"I believe that a proper stakeholders meeting would have been informed by thorough consultations with traditional rulers in Ekiti State and with notable, respectable and non-partisan people like Architect Olu Alade, Dr. Akeju, Chief Deji Fasuan and Bishop Alonge among others.
"Stakeholders are people that have the capacity to discuss state, national or common project with clear vision, clear mind and a patriotic heart, and whose focus will be the Ekiti man or the people involved. The true Ekiti man today is mourning because of where some of the so-called Ekiti Stakeholders have landed Ekiti. Today, Ekiti man's democratic right has been sacrificed by these self-seekers under the guise of pursuing one man."
Bloody PDP ward congress
Elesewhere in Ibadan yesterday, at least two people were feared killed in during the Ward Congress of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), while several others received various degree of matchete cuts when supporters of the deputy-governor, Alhaji Hazeem Gbolarumi went round the state.
Sunday Sun reliably learnt that a passerby was gunned down in the cross-fire between supporters of the deputy-governor and those of a leading gubernatorial aspirant in the state, Alhaji Yekini Adeojo, at Adeoyo area of the city.
Also, an unidentified party supporter was said to have been mowed down at Yemetu area of the city.
At Odo Iye area of Ward 1, Ibadan North Local Government, one Dauda Owolabi, a known supporter of the reinstated Governor, Senator Rasidi Ladoja, received a matchete cut from enraged PDP loyalists.
At Ward 10, located at Oba Akinyele High School, one Kola Olayiwola also received a matchete cut on the head while the house of Mr Aiki Wahab of Ward three was vandalized by aggrieved party loyalists.
But in a swift reaction, Special Adviser on Media to the deputy-governor, Mr. Ademola Solalu, debunked the reports, saying his boss was only on inspection tour of wards in the state.
But when asked about the attacks on Ladoja's supporters, he querried "Is Ladoja still a member of the PDP?
"I don't know of any attack on anybody. Oga (deputy-governor) was only going round the wards. But is Ladoja still a member of PDP? Since he is not a member of the party, what does his supporters want at the congress venues? It shows that they were there to foment trouble. But I don't know what actually happened."
At Oremeji Bus-stop, along Sanngo Road, the deputy-governor was seen walking on foot with about 200 of his supporters, while his official vehicles, a Toyota SUV and a 607 Peugeot cars trailed him.
Another convoy of commercial vehicles and a car, loaded with stern-looking men, was also following his convoy at a close distance.
In Osun State, no fewer than seven persons were arrested yesterday in Ile Ife and Osogbo as a result of intra-party clashes that characterised the PDP Ward Congresses.
In the melee, three vehicles were damaged while unspecified number of persons were also wounded as factions loyal to different party leaders within the party engaged themselves in a free-for-all.
At Ward 7 in Osogbo Local Government Area, three persons were matcheted as two factions said to be loyal to the incumbent chairman of the council, Alhaji Gbadamosi Adesola, and one Majiyagbe clashed at the venue of the congress.
It was gathered that the qiuck intervention of the police saved the situation while about five persons were arrested on the spot and taken to Oja Oba Police Station.
In Ile Ife, it was gathered that trouble started when one prominent politician was allegedly making attempts to change the electoral officers already slated for the exercise, saying his earlier complaints about the said officers were not heeded by the party.
In an attempt to resist the move, hoodlums reportedly swooped on other party members, beating some of them to a pulp while cutlasses and other dangerous weapons were said to have been freely used before the police intervention
Consequently, three persons were arrested, detained briefly in Moore Police Station in Ile Ife before they were transfered to the State Criminal Investigation Bureau, Osogbo
It was gathered that four persons including a councillorship aspirant were wounded in the clash in Ife Central and Ife East while a serving member of the House of Representatives was also attacked in the clash.