By Ayodele Oni
A group, Ekiti Development Agenda, (EDA) has accused some lawyers led by Afe Babalola, Wole Olanipekun and Femi Falana all Senior Advocates, of nursing personal agenda in the on-going speakership crisis rocking the Ekiti State House of Assembly.
In a statement signed by Odun Igbalajobi, Director, Public Affairs of the group, the trio were accused of “partisan interest masquerading as public concern for Ekiti people and her development.”
The Group notes that “Ordinarily, there is nothing wrong in elders who consider themselves as leaders of thought expressing concern about developments in their state of origin, Ekiti State and no ulterior motive should be read to such.
“It is however important to expose personal vendetta when it masquerades as public interest. This is unfortunately the case in this current controversy.
“Since the matter that has provided them with the excuse for this intervention may still end in court as they have hinted in their diatribe, we will leave that to the courts to address appropriately when the time comes.
“What is important to state here is that for the three elders, any discerning mind will know that this is a blatantly partisan interest masquerading as public concern for Ekiti people and her development. We shall explain.
“Anyone reading their letter will see how they strenuously hinted at so called nameless “political marauders”, accepting hook, line and sinker all that was parroted by the renegade member of the House, Gboyega Aribisogan, who has become a willing tool in the luminaries’ hate driven agenda.
“We have searched everywhere in the records for a similar letter by these so called concerned Ekiti elders when Rt Hon Wale Omirin was removed by seven (7) members of the 26 member assembly during Governor Fayose’s tenure and could not find any.
“If we are not mistaken, Fayose and these 7 members were represented by Dele Adesina in the suit brought by the majority members to reverse the injustice done to them.
“Yet, in the instant case eighteen members of the Ekiti House of Assembly removed their Speaker and the blame is on political marauders as though the Honourable members are kindergarten children who have no sense of proper parliamentary conduct.
“Besides, if the Police in their wisdom undertook their constitutional duty of protecting lives and property by acting on what they considered as credible intelligence (which later proved to be correct) when some hoodlums attempted to gain entry and burn down the Assembly, why blame the police for doing their job?
“Our revered legal luminaries ought to have found this out before insinuating that the Governor was not responsible for giving the orders to his Commissioner of Police.
“Who then was responsible? Of course, the agent of our legal luminaries, Gboyega Aribisogan, has been everywhere in the media shouting the name of the former Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi as the person who didn’t want him as Speaker, even though 18 of his colleagues took him out.
“One may ask, whatever happened to the principle of law back by Yoruba tradition on the need for us adjudicators, in the case these elders, to hear the other side.
“And this is why we have taken it upon ourselves to expose these luminaries for what they really are, especially since we also know that Dr Fayemi belongs to the “Silence is Golden” school and would rather continue to extend courtesies to these people who are not deserving of any courtesies.
“For us, it’s time to remove the mask from the masquerades and lay bare the ulterior motives behind this pretentious claims to Ekiti interest.”
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