BREAKING NEWS, Politics
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THE All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ekiti State has debunked claim by Governor Ayodele Fayose that he has been discharged and acquitted by the Federal High Court in the alleged N1.3b poultry project fraud case instituted against him in 2005 by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, said in a statement that the governor had been misleading the public for long about the status of the case still pending in the Federal High Court, Ado-Ekiti. Fayose had umpteenth time in the media and public speeches claimed that the court had acquitted him over the matter that was first before the Federal High Court, Lagos Division, before he contested the jurisdiction of the court, arguing that the alleged crime was committed in Ekiti State.
He won the argument and the case was subsequently transferred to the Federal High Court, Ado-Ekiti, which resumed the hearing of the case without delivering judgment against the claim by the governor on several occasions that the court had cleared him. But Olatunbosun said the party’s reaction to the governor’s claim became necessary to draw public attention to the true position of the matter.
He said contrary to Fayose’s claim, the matter is still alive and will be revisited immediately after the governor loses his immunity after the completion of his term. Berating the governor for elevating falsehood to the state policy of his administration, Olatunbosun said: “It is regrettable that Fayose has made lies and falsehood a major plank of the state policy of his government.
“There is no iota of truth in Fayose’s claim of acquittal as no court has delivered judgment on the matter, which is still pending before the Federal High Court, Ado-Ekiti. The case was last heard by Mr Justice Adamu Hobon of the Federal High Court, Ado-Ekiti, where EFCC gave a blow-by-blow incontrovertible evidence of how Fayose used Biological Concepts Limited owned by his friend, Gbenga James, to defraud Ekiti State of N1.3b to build houses and purchase car for his mother.
“After that sitting, what Fayose did was to approach the Supreme Court for an interlocutory injunction to frustrate the trial. This is not the same thing as being discharged and acquitted over a matter that judgment is yet to be given,” he explained.
While urging Fayose to stop misleading the public over the status of the matter, Olatunbosun explained that the matter had reached the stage of exchange of addresses to be followed by judgment shortly before Fayose emerged as the Governor elect in June 2014. He added that report available to the party also suggested that Fayose had allegedly caused the murder cases involving Ayo Daramola and Tunde Omojola to be dismissed in secret trial using the instrumentality of incumbency as a sitting governor since the matter was between Ekiti State Government as the plaintiff in a matter Fayose was a defendant.
“If not for the vigilance of some civil society groups who alerted the families of the victims, Fayose would have gotten away with this heartless manipulation of the court in secret trial without the knowledge of Daramola and Omojola’s families who want justice in the political murders of their sons.
“We know that Fayose cleverly did this to get himself out of trouble and later come out boasting that he had no murder case to answer while at the same time unconscionably pressing murder charges against APC members who he had earlier implicated in trumped-up murder charges.
Accusing Fayose of allegedly employing crooked ways to achieve his aim and later start running from pillar to post to cover up his tracks, Olatunbosun said no amount of lies, intrigues and blackmail would save him from facing justice over his alleged crimes against the state. Asking the governor to provide the court’s enrolment order discharging him on poultry project case to convince the public, he said it is regrettable that a governor who is supposed to be a role model for the youths lied “shamelessly to score cheap political points”.
He added that a judgment discharging Fayose in such celebrated N1.3 billion poultry scam case must have been delivered secretly; otherwise it would have been reported in the media. – Vanguard
— Jul 21, 2016 @ 16:25 GMT
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