DEMOLITION: ‘Gov. Ajimobi was expecting Ayefele to beg’

The last has surely not been heard concerning the demolition of Music House, the building housing Fresh FM 109.5, Ibadan owned by gospel singer Yinka Ayefele.

In an interview with PUNCH, David Ajiboye, publicist to Yinka Ayefele noted that Governor Abiola Ajimobi said he would have stopped the demolition of the Music House if the gospel musician had come to beg him.

Speaking on the circumstances that led to the peace meeting, Ajiboye declared that it was the Oyo State governor that called for a truce convergence with the singer.

“On Thursday, we were at a meeting organised by the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria at Golden Tulip when we got a call from one of the governorship aspirants in the state. He told us that the governor would like to see us. I was at the BON meeting with Yinka Ayefele and his younger brother. We felt that since they were the ones that invited us, we should honour the governor’s call; so we excused ourselves from the BON meeting and went to the governor’s office. We got there at about 12noon but the governor did not get to his office till about 4 pm. We did not leave the governor’s office until about 7 pm. I was at the meeting with Yinka Ayefele and his younger brother,” he said.

Read also: Why govt marked gospel singer Yinka Ayefele’s radio station for demolition

Ajiboye said Ayefele wanted a closed door meeting with the governor but was surprised that pictures of the gathering flooded social media afterwards.

“When the governor came into the office, we all prostrated to greet him being that he is older than us and we told them that we did not want cameras. We wanted a closed-door meeting with the governor so he asked the pressmen to excuse us but his private photographer did not leave the room. We noticed that while we were talking with the governor, the photographer was taking our pictures and uploading them on their twitter handle immediately. The governor later invited his team to come and join us in the meeting; his team comprised the commissioner for information, a governorship aspirant in the state and about four special assistants.

“The governor told us his grievances. He told us that he could have saved the situation if only we had come to see him. He felt we ought to have come to beg him and our chairman, Yinka Ayefele, pointed it out that we had since told the commissioner for information to book an appointment with the governor. He further said that he called the SSG to help him book an appointment with the governor even before this incident happened and the commissioner corroborated his claims but said that the governor was unavailable at the time,” Ajiboye added.

One of the resolutions reached at the meeting was a directive issued by the governor ordering that a new building accommodating the additional parts of the demolished structure be approved for Ayefele immediately.

To that end, Ayefele’s architect is to immediately liaise with officials in the department of physical planning to work out the modalities and the approval, while the fence of the building would be moved back a few metres.

It was gathered, that governor Ajimobi also expressed willingness to ensure financial compensation to Ayefele, with the terms of the recompense to be discussed at a later meeting between the governor and the proprietor of the station.

 

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