EKITI GOV POLL: Plan to disqualify Fayemi fails

The efforts to have the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the July 14 governorship election in Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, disqualified on Tuesday proved abortive.

A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) sitting at Bwari on Tuesday dismissed the suit brought before the court by African People’s Party (APP) asking that the former Minister of Mines and Solid Minerals be disqualified from participating in the coming election.

APP had in the suit marked FCT/HC/BW/CV/57/2018, which had Fayemi, APC, and Ekiti State government as defendants, challenged Fayemi’s eligibility to contest the governorship election having been indicted by the state government Commission of Inquiry white paper.

But in his ruling on the matter, Justice Othman Musa, said that there was no evidence that Fayemi was validly indicted by the Judicial Commission of Inquiry constituted by Governor Ayodele Fayose to probe his alleged involvement in illegal diversion of funds belonging to the state.

The judge said that the affidavit evidence before the court showed that Fayemi was not accorded fair-hearing by the Justice Silas Bamidele Oyewole-led eight-man panel of Inquiry that eventually indicted him over alleged embezzlement and contract fraud.

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He added that the said indictment had no force of law and that the panel lacked the vires to bar Fayemi from contesting or holding public office for a period of 10 years.

According to the judge, Section 182(1)(i) of the constitution, on which the suit was based, was no longer in existence having been deleted in 2011 by the National Assembly through the first alteration of the 1999 Constitution.

As a result, Justice Musa dismissed the suit. He also quashed the white paper that Ekiti State Commission of Inquiry issued against Fayemi.

 

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