- He should be charged with perjury –Gov’s aide
From Taiwo Amodu, Abuja & Wole Balogun, Ado Ekiti
MORE facts emerged yesterday on the contentious Ekiti governorship election held on June 21, 2014. The poll was won by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate and incumbent Governor, Ayodele Fayose.
A video-recording of how the plot to rig the election was perfected and hatched by the PDP in connivance with key figures in the Jonathan administration and certain top military officers serving had gone viral last year.
The recording, carried out by Captain Sagir Koli, revealed the connivance among some ex-ministers, top military officers, Fayose and certain PDP chieftains.
Checks revealed that a military panel, the Ekiti, Osun polls Military Board which sat in Kaduna and chaired by General Adeniyi Oyebade had since submitted its report to the Federal Government.
Addressing newsmen at the weekend in Abuja, Dr Tope Aluko, former secretary of the state PDP yesterday revealed how the election was allegedly rigged in favour of
Fayose. Aluko, Fayose’s Returning Officer at the election, was one of the civilians who testified before the General Oyebade panel.
Aluko who was the Chairman, Security and
Intelligence, Fayose Campaign Organisation, said the revelations in the Captain Koli video recording were true, as he noted that he (Aluko) corroborated them in his testimony before the military panel
Presidency’s involvement:
“After the primary, Fayose said the only way we could convincingly win was to use the military. That was how we got support from the Army.
“For the primary won by Fayose, we collected $2 million on March 23, 2014 at the NNPC Towers, Abuja. For the governorship election, we got $35 million from the Presidency; we received the money at a hotel in Ekiti State.
“We also brought 400 soldiers from Enugu State. It was easy for us to do this because a certain minister did it. I am going into all these for you to know that the finding of the military panel on the Ekiti election was right.
For the election observers who adjudged the election as free and fair, Aluko absolved them of complicity as he noted that “they only reported what they saw.”
Aluko told newsmen that chieftains of the All Progressives Congress election, (APC) working for the party candidate, Dr Kayode Fayemi were detained on the eve of the election ,and the whole exercise was a PDP affair.
Aluko who claimed Fayose reneged on an earlier agreement to make him Chief of Staff, said his revelations were not intended to get back at Fayose, but to clear his conscience
“The Ekiti election was a coup, not an election. I am using this opportunity to apologise to Ekiti people over my role,” he said.
Reacting, Fayose’s Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, described Aluko as a new distraction from the APC, saying he does not deserve response from sane minds.
Olayinka said Aluko was already beclouded by his desperation to seek revenge against Fayose because of the governor’s refusal to make him Chief of Staff, such that he (Aluko) was not mindful of committing the criminal offence of perjury.
The governor’s aide who said it was shameful that the APC has refused to accept the defeat they suffered 19 months ago, asked whether it was also soldiers that rigged the 2015 presidential, Senatorial, House of Representatives and state House of Assembly elections that the party lost woefully in Ekiti.
He said; “For Aluko to be taken seriously, he must first report himself to the police to be tried for perjury and committed to prison for three years, since what he is now saying is different from what he said under oath at the Election Petition Tribunal being the only witness called by the PDP and Governor Fayose.
“If after giving evidence under oath at the tribunal that the election was free, fair and credible and that security agents, including soldiers performed their duties creditably well, saying something else more than one year after, is an admittance by Aluko himself that he is not a stable character.
“It is also a demonstration of the fact that giving the right offer tomorrow, the same Aluko can also address the press to deny all what he said today. He could even deny his own existence since he can deny what he said under oath just because he was not made Chief of Staff,” he said.