Ekiti Lawmakers Flee To Ibadan, Say Our Lives Unsafe

Nine lawmakers of the Ekiti House of Assembly have fled Ekiti State to Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, alleging that their lives were unsafe.
The lawmakers, who addressed a news conference in Ibadan, on Wednesday, alleged that a batch of detectives from the Force Criminal Investigation Department, Abuja, arrived in Ado Ekiti on Tuesday to arrest them.
They alleged that the batch was led by a Chief Superintendent of Police, Mohammed Abubakar.
The lawmakers alleged that some leaders of the All Progressives Congress were seen helping policemen identify their homes, stressing that they fled Ekiti because their lives were being threatened.
The Assembly’s Committee Chairman on Information, Youths and Sports, Gboyega Aribisogan, who spoke on behalf of other lawmakers in Ibadan, said it was ‘necessary to come to Ibadan to alert the public to the new clandestine plot by the APC-led Federal Government to cripple the government of Ekiti State’.

He said, “Yesterday (Tuesday), some policemen led by one CSP Mohammed Abubakar of the Force CID, Abuja, were brought to Ekiti State by the expelled former state Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. TKO Aluko and the Ekiti State APC Chairman, Mr. Jide Awe.
“The assignment the policemen were to carry out was to embark on an indiscriminate arrest of top functionaries of the PDP and the state government, including 11 members of the state House of Assembly.”
Meanwhile, the Ekiti State House of Assembly has revealed that the three legislators declared missing by the state government actually ran into hiding in order to evade arrest by the officials of the Department of State Services.
Musa Arogundade, Badejo Anifowose and Sina Animasaun were unveiled at a news conference addressed in Ado Ekiti by the Speaker, Ekiti State House of Assembly, Kola Oluwawole and the Chairman, Committee on Information, Youths and Sports, Gboyega Aribisogan.

They had gone underground since March 4 when a member of the legislature, Afolabi Akanni, was arrested and detained for 18 days by the DSS over alleged sundry allegations.
Oluwawole  also announced that the Assembly had directed the state lawmakers to shun any invitation from the DSS due to an alleged plot to arrest and detain them.
He said, “We are lawmakers, we are not law breakers. If the DSS had started on a good note, we would have cooperated. But going by the questions posed to Akanni during interrogation; they asked him why was he resisting an impeachment move against Fayose? This shows that they have a sinister motive.”

March 31, 2016