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Ekiti: Before Our Impending Expulsion From APC

Senator

Our group Ekiti APC Stakeholders issues the statement below three days ago. Yesterday we went to court. Today we have been suspended by our governor we helped brought to power Dr Kayode Fayemi.

A curious process is taking place in Ekiti State branch of our progressive party. Our governor and the chairman of Nigeria’s Governors Forum Dr Kayode Fayemi , after installing the governor of Edo State in a clear case of anti Party, is bent on expelling 11 leaders of the party in Ekiti State.

Towards achieving this purpose he has set up a Committee of his adulators to put us on trial in a predetermined process. The Committee is chairmanned by one , Mr Ajigbolamu who recently left the PDP to join our party. We also know that the affairs of the Committee is managed by the office of the Attorney General , Mr Wale Fapounda , his anointed for the position of Governor when his term is over in 2022.

Those involved are former Senators ,former members of House of Representatives, former Speaker of the State House of Assembly, a number of aspirants who contested against him and notable leaders of the party in the state.

What is our collective offense?

Eleven of us, most of whom had assisted him greatly in becoming whatever he has become in the politics of our state and Nigeria had called his attention to the non governance in the state; his penchant to leave the state for many days and govern from Abuja;
his outright non inclusiveness in the running of government and party, and the abdication of his duties for another role not knowing to our constitution, the alternate President of Nigeria.

We pointed out to him the illegality of his appointing the executives of our party from the ward to the state level in a private home in Iyin Ekiti without abiding by the constitution of our party. We demanded of him the dissolution of this product of illegality and institution of a legitimate executive in compliance with our party’s constitution. We intimated our party leaders of these concerns; the same problem which were present in his first term that led to our losing the state to PDP with ignominy in year 2014 .

We wrote a petition to Chief Bisi Akande who was appointed Chair of a Committee to resolve issues in states where there are problems but which Committee could not perform due to the sudden problem of the pandemics.

When Dr Fayemi , whose only claim to fame was fighting against military rulership and human rights, began to hound us, suspending our members in the Wards, we cried to our leaders and chose to employ the legitimate means known to the laws of our country to protect our rights and headed to the courts.

He succeeded in carrying out the suspension of some while he was resisted by the wards executive of others.

The Ekiti crisis was clearly before the crisis that engulfed the National Working Committee of our party, which our highly respected President Muhammadu Buhari came up to resolve.

As soon as the National Caretaker Committee was appointed to run the party we ran to the Committee stating our case. The Committee was yet to intervene when Governor Fayemi set up the kangaroo panel to try us with the intent to expel us from the party.

Earlier , he had done same thing to Chief Segun Oni . Oni served our party as Deputy National Chairman without blemish . Thinking that Oni may offer himself to be governor come 2022 he instigated his suspension and stampeded him out of the party.

It is the same strategy he is trying to employ by setting up a Committee to expel us. We however insist we shall under no circumstance leave the party to join another. We were members of the party from foundation and also members of ACN , a legacy party that joined with others to form APC . We were in the other progressive parties, AD, AC that existed before and transformed to the present party.

We also make bold to say that some of us being threatened with expulsion were responsible for inviting Governor Fayemi in 2005 to come home and run for the governor of our state. We also worked tirelessly for the period of three and a half years it took to get him installed as governor through the court process.

In 2014 Fayemi’s bid to do a second term hit the rocks and he lost in all the 16 local governments of the state. What is being experienced today is worse than what made the people of Ekiti rejected him then.

In the last election that brought him to power he only won with 18,000 votes , a clear show of his unpopularity in the state ; and that was made possible by some of our local and national leaders who were able to convince some PDP stalwarts to leave their party and work for him. One of those who left their party then to assist him Prince Dayo Adeyeye is among those he has injured and sidelined in the party.

Our fears, and why we are standing up against him today and calling attention to the failure of governance in the state is that we do not want to lose the state to the rapaciousness of PDP again. Ekiti is a progressive state and this has been right from independence. We shall not sit down and allow one man’s incompetence to turn our state to a PDP state or a state where batons are exchanged between PDP and APC every four years thus depriving it of the necessary stability to ensure its growth.

We had thought Dr Fayemi was ready for reconciliation when he set up a panel of 7 led by High Chief Awe, a former Chairman of the party to reconcile the aggrieved party members in the state. Alas we were wrong. As loyal party members we appeared before the Committee and was waiting for the outcome of the process when he set up this panel with the matching order to expel us.

We are therefore calling our national leadership to stop Dr Kayode Fayemi from killing our party in Ekiti. Things are bad enough now for the party in the state. Allowing him to carry out our expulsion will only spell doom for our beloved APC . We are amazed that it is this same Fayemi who is claiming to be settling disputes in Oyo State when his own house is on fire. We are not however deceived . The true story of his engagement in Oyo will soon be public knowledge.

We however want to let the world know that whatever is the outcome of his kangaroo panel whose invitation we have chosen not to honor because the matter is already before a court of law we shall not abandon our party.

We are progressives from generations of families of progressives. We are no party hoppers. We shall remain and salvage it for the task ahead in our state.

Prince Bamgboye Adegoroye
For and on behalf of Ekiti APC Stakeholders

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