The move by the lawmakers in Ekiti State to impeach the governor, took another dimension on Tuesday as the Commissioner for Works, Kayode Oso, Special Adviser to the Governor on Political Matters, Ademola Bello and four others were arrested by the police.
They were among the loyalists of Governor Ayo Fayose who laid siege to the precincts of the Assembly complex, waiting for the 19 All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers.
Also arrested are Adeyanju Oluwole, Raphael Adebayo, Babajide Adebayo and Wasiu Ogunsakin.
Police sources said they were arrested with one black colour Ford pick-up van with registration number EK 05-B27 and one blue Toyota Hilux van with registration number AA 363 YEK.
The two vehicles, believed to belong to the state government, were carrying weapons, including nine live cartridges, 10 cutlasses, charms, fake US dollars, a carton of Regal dry gin, a parcel of Indian hemp and six small kegs of kerosene.
Some of the thugs in the entourage reportedly escaped during their encounter with the policemen.
Police Commissioner Taiwo Lakanu could not be reached for comments on phone proved abortive as he did not pick his calls. Neither did he reply text messages sent to his cell phone.
In Efon Alaaye in Efon Local Government Area, a man identified as Modupe Olaiya, was shot dead as the anti-Fayose impeachment demonstrators took to the streets following rumours that the 19 APC members were on their way to to the town.
It was learnt that the lawmakers’ convoy was blocked by some youths and soldiers at Itawure, a town between Ekiti and Osun states. Olaiya was shot in the commotion that ensued when the protesters challenged the lawmakers and asked them to return to Osogbo, the Osun State capital.
The victim, it was learnt sustained injury from shots fired to scare away the protesters, who took over the Ado-Itawure-Ilesa Road.
The Assembly Speaker, Adewale Omirin, described as “untrue,” reports that the convoy of the lawmakers killed Olaiya.
According to him, the claim by Fayose’s media aide, Lere Olayinka, that the lawmakers’ convoy killed Olaiya was a “figment of his imagination and one in the series of media spins he had been using to mislead the people to get sympathy.”
Wole Olujobi, the Special Adviser on Media to the speaker said Olayinka was in a familiar terrain of mindless propaganda to mislead the public.
He argued that its members could not have been responsible for the death of anyone in Efon Alaaye when they were turned back by soldiers in Itawure, a distance of about two kilometres.
He added, “The truth is that no one was killed. Nobody saw a dead body on the way up to Itawure junction where the soldiers disallowed us to pass. Itawure junction is not the same as Efon-Alaaye, so we don’t know where he got his story.
“However, we heard that Fayose removed a dead body from the mortuary and presented it to Efon people, claiming that Folorunso Ogundele, a member of the House of Assembly and an indigene of Efon-Alaaye, was the one who pulled the trigger to kill a fellow Efon-Alaaye man in order to instigate violence in the town against him.
“For those who know Fayose very well, this story is typical of his rabble-rousing tactics to cause mob action against opponents.
“It is gratifying that the people were able to quickly decipher that Fayose was up to a mischief to set brothers against brothers.”
The speaker explained that the soldiers who stopped the lawmakers on their way offered no explanation for their action.
“Instead of losing our cool for their strange behaviour, we just left the place,” he stated
The statement added that sources later confirmed that the soldiers were under a firm instruction of a Brigadier-General to disallow the lawmakers from passing through the check-point.
It said that the Brigadier-General , whose voice was heard among those that were implicated in the leaked audio tape detailing Ekiti election fraud, is the Commander of the Battalion where the soldiers at the check-point were attached.
The lawmakers have however vowed to go ahead with the impeachment proceedings, saying that they had a constitutional duty and responsibility to probe any infraction of the constitution.
Omirin, his deputy, Tunji Orisalade and the Majority Leader, Churchill Adedipe, also told a news conference in Osogbo,that the Brigade Commander, 32 Artillery Brigade, Akure, Brig-Gen. Aliyu Momoh, denied them entry into Ado Ekiti at a military checkpoint in Ita Iwure.
They said that Momoh, who had earlier been accused of alleged connivance with Fayose in the use soldiers to rig the Ekiti State governorship election of 2014, was present at the checkpoint where they were prevented from entering into the state.
The lawmakers, however, commended the Commissioner of Police in Ekiti State, Taiwo Lakanu, for ensuring their protection until they got to the checkpoint.
Adedipe said, “Governor Fayose used his strategy of criminality and brigandage and we were ambushed by soldiers at the military checkpoint in Ita Iwure.
“We were attacked, the soldiers at the military checkpoint stopped us and they delayed us deliberately for the thugs hired by Fayose to come and attack us there. You will recall that Gen. Momoh, who was pointed in the Ekiti gate scandal, was the same General who was physically present at the checkpoint.
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