OPEN LETTER TO APC INTERIM NATIONAL CHAIRMAN - By Dipo Akinwumi (Ekiti APC Chieftain) Dear Sir, RE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 2013 INCIDENCE IN IYIN-EKITI; THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER. I write with respect to an Open Letter of Protest against Hon. Michael Opeyemi Bamidele purportedly written and published by the All Progressives Congress, Ado-Ekiti and Irepodun/Ifelodun LGA (Ekiti Central Federal Constituency I) and signed by one Mr David O. Adigun and Chief Adeyemi Olufemi Ganiyu who claimed to be the Chairmen of the party(APC) in the two Local Government Areas of Ekiti State respectively. While reading the malicious protest letter which was published in a three page advertorial carried in the Nation Newspaper of Wednesday, September 4, 2013 and later repeated in the Friday, September 6 edition of The Guardian and Nigerian Tribune newspapers, my attention was captured by a reference made to the alleged disruption of the burial ceremony of my late mother, Mrs Felicia Akinwunmi, which took place in Iyin-Ekiti, Ekiti State on Friday, 23rd August, 2013. The authors of the said publication had claimed that Hon. Michael Opeyemi Bamidele was the one who brought in thugs to disrupt the burial ceremony. For the sake of the truth and the protection of our untainted name and integrity, the entire Akinwunmi family of Oketoro quarters in Iyin-Ekiti has resolved to set the records straight and avail members of the public the opportunity to know exactly what transpired at the ceremony. In the first place, we felt highly embarrassed by the fact that our private family affair is now being dragged into the controversial corridor of politics of Ekiti State without recourse to due consultation with the family members to ascertain the course of actions and reactions that took place at the event in view. Moreover, we felt even more embarrassed, insulted and violated by the way and manner the issue was trivialized and reported out of context in the above stated newspaper editions, which portrayed a deliberate misrepresentation of the true picture and a desperate falsification of verifiable facts to which many party faithfuls, highly revered community leaders and chiefs as well as security personnel and media practitioners present at the event could attest without any iota of ambiguity. On the said date, the occasion was graced by the esteemed presence of my friends, well wishers, extended family members and invited political associates among whom was Hon. Michael Opeyemi Bamidele, the lawmaker representing Ekiti Central Federal Constituency I in the House of Representatives. In the course of the ceremony, all the guests including Hon. Bamidele and all the members of his entourage comported themselves peacefully and cheerfully as a mark of civility, tradition and respect to the departed soul. Hon. Bamidele danced and celebrated with me and my family members in the midst of other friends and political associates. It is also instructive to note that the OPC men allegedly brought to the occasion by Bamidele were actually single-handedly invited by my humble self to complement the efforts of law enforcement agents at ensuring the security of lives and properties at the event. As the party progressed, we suddenly got a hint that some hoodlums led by one Niyi Adedipe (aka Apase) and Mr. Deji Adesokan had stormed the venue with the intent of attacking members of the entourage of Hon. Michael Opeyemi Bamidele and possibly disrupting our ceremony. Immediately, we tried to forestall the heinous act, but before we could stop the evil marauders in action, we discovered that their hired hoodlums, who acted under the watchful supervision of Mr Deji Adesokan (also known as Jaru), a Special Assistant to Governor Kayode Fayemi, had wounded some people with broken bottles and damaged some vehicles at the event, including vehicles of some notable guests mainly because of their relationship with me and other members of my family, including guests who are not even politicians at all. It is intriguing that Mr Deji Adesokan and his co-vandals did not only ensure that some vehicles in Hon. Opeyemi Bamidele’s entourage were damaged, they also saw to it that the event was disrupted allegedly because of my close association with Hon. Bamidele, who is equally a co-indigene of Iyin-Ekiti. In response to the disgraceful and highly condemnable actions against my family and our invited guests, some youths in the community tried to apprehend the hoodlums to put a halt to their barbaric acts. Realizing that a combined force of community youths and the invited security men had overpowered them, the hoodlums and Deji Adesokan, their ring leader, fled from the venue of the occasion. As a family, we were more amazed that some police men at the instance of Deji Adesokan could come back to Iyin-Ekiti township on Saturday, 24th and the morning of Monday, 26th of August, 2013 to terrorize members of the community, thereby shooting our youths at sight and taking them to police custody inspite of the fact that the actual culprits of the Friday, 23rd August scenario were Deji Adesokan (Special Assistant to Governor Fayemi on Internal Security) and his co-gangsters. As I write, three people are still being treated of injuries sustained from gun shots, courtesy of Deji Adesokan, the notorious Special Assistant on Internal Security to our “human rights activist” Governor. As a faithful stalwart of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and by extension, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State, I found it extremely curious and unfathomable why some hoodlums led by a security aide to Governor Fayemi, who belongs to the same political party as I do, could disrupt the burial ceremony of my late mother and also vandalize properties belonging to my teeming guests and invitees. As law abiding citizens, my family members and I are deeply disappointed and disturbed by the untoward attitude of some police men who, despite my official report of the incidence to them, threw caution to the wind and connived with Deji Adesokan on Monday, 26th of August to terrorize our community, which eventually led to the shooting of four innocent persons (three of whom are still receiving treatment in the Hospital), unlawful arrest of over twenty indigenes of Iyin-Ekiti community as well as the intimidation of our kinsmen by the unwarranted relocation of police Armoured Personnel Carrier to Iyin Ekiti and the military occupation of the town for two days. More appalling is it to us that the self-acclaimed Chairmen of APC in Ado and Irepodun/Ifelodun LGAs, on the instruction of their sponsors, gave a total misrepresentation of the incidence in their Newspaper publications, thereby unnecessarily dragging our family name into the orgy of bitter politics and malicious intrigues at play within the ACN/APC circle in Ekiti State, just to score cheap political points. However, as a family that is proud of its untainted image and integrity, it is our intent to inform the National leadership and members of the public, for the sake of the truth and clarity on the issue, that neither Hon. Michael Opeyemi Bamidele and members of his entourage nor OPC members who attended the occasion on my invitation caused the mayhem that happened in Iyin-Ekiti between Friday, 23rd August and Monday, 26th August, 2013 but that the prime culprit is Mr Deji Adesokan in company of a killer squad led by one Niyi Adedipe, an OPC factional gang leader in Ekiti State. I am convinced that the disruption of my late mother’s burial ceremony on Friday, 23rd August, 2013 was a deliberate move by the Governor Fayemi administration to further intimidate my family and I for not supporting the Governor’s second term bid and for my principled stance on issues that bother on his draconian style of administration. This will become more evident by the fact that my monthly salaries and emolument as a board member of Ekiti State Revenue Task Force have been withheld without any excuse or explanation since in the last five months. Relevant also is the fact that I had been arrested on the 19th of April this year by a team of police men led by Deji Adesokan (Jaru), the same Special Assistant to the Governor on Internal Security. I was unlawfully detained till the 22nd of April when I was arraigned before Magistrate Oyewole of Court 7 in Ado Ekiti Judicial Division over a spurious allegation of stoning Governor Fayemi’s convoy at Iyin Ekiti during the 75th Birthday anniversary of the Oluyin of Iyin Ekiti, Oba Justice Ademola Ajakaiye. I was granted a conditional bail on extremely stringent terms. And even after the terms were met, the Magistrate refused to sign my bail papers and I had to be remanded in prison until my lawyers, Barrister Olatawura and Barrister Kowe, protested to the Ado Ekiti branch of the Nigerian Bar Association which took up the matter with the Chief Judge of the State on my behalf the next day before I could regain my conditional freedom. The case was reported in the Nation newspaper of 23rd April, 2013. So far, the case has been adjourned three times and the next hearing is slated for Friday, 27th of September, 2013. As I write, more than twenty supporters of Hon. Michael Opeyemi Bamidele (from Iyin Ekiti, Ikole Ekiti, Ikere Ekiti, Ijero Ekiti, Ode Ekiti, Aisegba Ekiti, Igbara Odo, Aramoko Ekiti, Ido Ekiti, Ilawe Ekiti, Emure Ekiti and Efon Alaaye) are standing trial in different Magistrates Courts in Ekiti State over various spurious allegations because the Fayemi administration believes it can use the Judiciary as an extension of its campaign office to intimidate and harass political opponents into submission. I have never seen a situation where people who go around using thugs and State security apparati to molest and brutalise people will still be the ones to be treated as the complainants in subsequent criminal proceedings. All of these developments are being documented for posterity and I won’t be surprised if His Excellency, Dr. Olukayode John Fayemi, ends up being the first former Governor to be taken to the war crime tribunal or the Nigerian Human Rights Commission for prosecution after leaving office. In conclusion, the entire Akinwunmi family of Iyin-Ekiti hereby demand for an unreserved apology from the Governor Fayemi administration for the personal injuries as well as the willful and unlawful damage done to the properties of our guests as well as the entire Iyin-Ekiti community through the terror unleashed on us as stage-managed by the unruly security aide of the Fayemi administration and his gendermes on the above mentioned dates. It is on record that when Dr. Fayemi lost his father in 2009, all of us supported him to give his late father a befitting burial just like we equally joined his Excellency in celebrating the life of his departed mother in 2012. But when it was my turn to bury my own late mother in August 2013, Governor Fayemi looked the other way while aides and functionaries on his pay roll ensured the disruption of the funeral ceremony. Obviously, my offence, as a party chieftain, is to have chosen to support Hon. Michael Opeyemi Bamidele, rather than Dr. Kayode Fayemi, for the Governorship of Ekiti State come 2014. I am sure if Hon. Bamidele were not in the Governorship race, the same set of people who are trying to malign his character today would have been among those who, truly, would be singing his praises as the best Lawmaker from Ekiti State. But such is the way of desperate politicians! We equally seek for an immediate investigation into the incidence by the leadership of the party to further unravel the truth of the matter in order to bring the culprits to book without further delay. In the same vein, we call on you and other stakeholders of the party to impress it on His Excellency, Governor Fayemi and his overzealous aides to desist from fanning the ember of acrimony and politics of bitterness and malicious image destruction being perpetrated as this is an ill wind that cannot blow anyone any good. Or how else will one explain the fact that the Messrs David Adigun and Adeyemi Ganiyu who signed the publication as APC Chairmen in Ado Ekiti and Irepodun/Ifelodun Local Governments, who are a retired Primary School Teacher and a Bus Driver respectively, actually authored the publication and had the financial capacity to buy three pages in each of the Nation, Guardian and Tribune newspapers at the cost of over Five Million Naira merely to repeat some of the earlier insinuations and orchestrated falsehood earlier published by commissioned writers and columnists like Oladimeji Daniels, Femi Orebe and other faceless writers all of whom will soon be exposed for their hatchet mission and nuisance value as Ekiti people are much wiser than they assume and are capable of decidedly saying “NO” to any form of intimidation, be it intellectual or (as currently being perpetrated) physical, aimed at ensuring second term at gun point. Those who live in a glass house are said by the wise to be wary of throwing stones. In the same vein, those who hide under official immunity to perpetrate evil and make other people unhappy by putting tears on their faces and hunger in their bellies should not forget that no one is immune from divine judgment and nemesis. Neither conditions nor positions are permanent as change is the only constant thing in life. Thank you for your time and urgent attention to this matter. Sincerely, For and on behalf of the entire Akinwunmi family of Oketoro Quarters, Iyin-Ekiti, Ekiti State
Posted on: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 09:21:28 +0000
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