Fayose’s Thugs Disrupt Ekiti PDP Gov. Consensus Committee

There was bedlam Tuesday morning at the Ekiti State secretariat of the Peoples Democratic Party, where thugs suspected to be loyal to former Governor Ayodele Fayose, invaded the party office at Ajilosun area in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, firing gunshots, breaking bottles and wielding machetes.

The invasion was in a bid to disrupt the inauguration of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governorship consensus committee, which was to pick a governorship candidate among the over 20 aspirants jostling to fly the party’s flag in next year’s election.

The incident, which occurred at about 10 a.m., resulted in a pandemonium, as several motorists were seen making a detour, as well as residents scampering to safety.

P.M.NEWS gathered that the inauguration of the consensus committee scheduled for 12 noon could not hold due to the disruption, while some members of the party executives were attacked by the rampaging thugs.

Fayose’s grouse stemmed from his rejection of the committee, which was agreed upon by other members of the Ekiti PDP Elders Committee, led by Senator Clement Kolawole Awoyelu, at an emergency meeting it held last Friday in the state.

The Elders Committee had given its nod to the consensus committee, which will include acceptance officers and party chairmen from the 16 local government areas in the state.

Fayose’s ex-deputy, Surveyor Abiodun Aluko, told P.M.NEWS “he was the only one among the Elders Committee that rejected the consensus committee. Even before coming to the meeting last Friday, he had addressed the press, saying that he was opposed to whatever decision the Elders Committee would take without waiting to know what it intended to do.”

Aluko, also an aspirant, is the chairman of the Ekiti South Senatorial Gubernatorial Aspirants, which is agitating that it should be allowed to produce the governorship candidate for the party. According to a communiqué it issued last Thursday, the group stated that it was the only one among the three senatorial districts that is yet to produce a governor since the creation of the state in 1996.

Efforts to speak to Fayose was abortive because he neither picked his calls to his GSM phone nor responded to the short message service, SMS, sent to him.

The state’s party chairman, Makanjuola Ogundipe, could not be reached as his phone was also switched off, while phone calls to the state Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Maishanu, did not yield any result.

—Folarin Ademosu