Members of the Ekiti state House of Assembly were in Abuja, the nation’s capital, on Thursday, March 10, 2016 where they asked President Muhammadu Buhari to direct the Department of State Services (DSS) to release four of their members detained by the service since last Friday.
The four Ekiti lawmakers were arrested by the DSS last week and whisked away to Abuja. Both the Ekiti Gov. Ayo Fayose and members of the state assembly have alleged that the presidency is trying to instigate the lawmakers to move for the governor’s impeachment.
Briefing newsmen at the National Assembly complex in Abuja, the chairman of the Ekiti House Committee on information, Honourable Gboyega Aribisogan said that if the DSS did not have the go-ahead from Pres. Buhari, its agents would not have carried out such an action. He said that “plotters of evil” against the governor will not get the support of the assembly.
“We, members of the State House of Assembly are prepared to spend the rest of our tenure in DSS cell, instead of plotting against our leader and mentor, Governor Ayodele Fayose”, he said.
He said the days when impeachment notices against governors were signed on the table of the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) are gone. “If the DSS is programmed to play the role played by the EFCC under former President Obasanjo, it will fail,” he said.
According to the assembly spokesman, if the “harassment and intimidation” is about 2018 when Ekiti will go to the polls to elect a new governor, it will not work as the PDP is “fully on ground in Ekiti”.
“We are not playing diaspora politics as being done by the APC and Nigerians should be rest assured that the APC will be defeated once again,” said Aribisogan.
Alleging that the DSS plans to arrest and detain more Ekiti lawmakers, the assembly spokesman said they were in Abuja to inquire from the DSS “those of us they still want to arrest so that we can turn ourselves in without giving them the stress of coming down to Ekiti.
“The DSS can also go ahead and publish the names of our members that they want to arrest so that we will know who among us to bring to Abuja.
“Alternatively, the DSS can keep the entire 26 members of the Ekiti State House of Assembly in their custody for as long as they desire so that it will be easy for them to call anyone of us for questioning at any time of the day,” he stated.
