*DSS, EFCC intruding on my privacy – Fayose
*Tell Nigerians more stories – Lawyer reacts to Ekiti governor’s response
*Says not enough to dodge real issue and start abusing President Buhari, DSS, EFCC, others
SaharaReporters has come up with another audio recording, this time, linking one more actor in the person of the Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, with an exclusive audio of a telephone conversation between him and his Rivers State counterpart, Nyesom Wike in which both men discussed Mr. Wike’s sharp maneuvers during the December 10, 2016 rerun of legislative elections in Rivers State.
In the leaked telephone conversation, the two governors, according to the report, can be heard having an excited conversation about how Mr. Wike stormed a collation center during the election. The tone of the exchanges, reportedly, makes it clear that Mr. Wike’s aim was to manipulate the results of the elections in favor of his candidates. In a tone that shows how he outmaneuvered the Nigerian Army, Wike declares in the conversation that, “Nigeria Army does not exist again.”
But in a swift response, Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose accused the Department of State Service (DSS) of recording telephone conversations of Nigerians perceived as critical of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) government, editing the conversations and leaking same to a particular online newspaper.
Governor Fayose said, “Rather than sitting down and be monitoring peoples phones, the Federal Government should provide food for Nigerians and save the lives of those that are being killed in Southern Kaduna and other places.”
The governor, who on Thursday reacted to the online publication of his telephone conversation with Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, through his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, said; “If the President and his hatchet men in the DSS, EFCC and other Federal Government agencies do not know what to do other than to record phone conversations of their perceived political foes, they should just resign and save the country from this harrowing experience.”
He said it was obvious that they were being threatened by the complimentary comments of notable Nigerians like Pastor Enoch Adeboye, Pastor W. F. Kumuyi, Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi and others about him because those comments negate the cabal’s evil intentions.
“They should even go beyond taping of my lines and come to live with me in Ekiti government house so that they can do per seconds live recordings of whatever I say because in the year 2017, by the grace of God, I will still say more without apology,” he said.
Through the reaction to the leaked audio telephone conversation with Wike, as published by the online media, Governor Ayodele Fayose did not deny a single claim in the report except that he took on President Muhammadu Buhari, the DSS, EFCC and other Federal agencies asking Nigerians not to keep silent to the leak he described as tyranny of the sitting government.
A previous telephone conversation obtained and released by the same SaharaReporters had exposed Mr. Wike discussing the bribe he gave to unscrupulous officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) who consented to help rig the rerun elections in the state.
Governor Wike’s aides initially denied the authenticity of the scandalous audiotape. However, as it became undeniable that the voice belonged to him, the governor, report said, sought to deflect public attention by setting up a panel ostensibly to probe the cause, source and nature of widespread violence that marked the national and state legislative elections in his state of Rivers.
The online media said Mr. Wike also set up his probe after the Nigerian Police had composed a panel charged with examining issues arising from the rerun elections. Those issues it said included establishing the authenticity or otherwise of leaked telephone conversations in which the governor discussed his payment to electoral officials.
The latest leaked audio of a conversation that came in the wake of the election, the report explicitly stated, demonstrates the personal and political closeness between Governors Fayose and Wike.
Reacting to the whole issues of Wike and Fayose, some Nigerians have begun to express concern why the two governors have consistently behaved the way they do and they seem to be having their ways all the times in a land that is law-based.
A lawyer who pleaded anonymity speaking with The DEFENDER Thursday evening said, “I have read Governor Ayodele Fayose’s reaction to the online report of his conversation with Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State in which they both reportedly mocked the Nigerian Army over the December 10 legislative rerun elections. What I discovered from that reaction is that, Governor Fayose only succeeded in throwing tantrum at a higher government of the land without telling the world whether or not he actually did the telephone conversation in question.
“Observably, Fayose tried to point attention to why his telephone conversation is his privacy and should not be trampled upon by the DSS, EFCC or any Federal Government agency. He forgot that in matter of national security the government can go to any length securing the state. There is therefore more to what Fayose has said that Nigerian people want to here, which means, the Federal Government should act fast as the activities of these two governors of Ekiti and Rivers have implications on the security of Nigerian State and the peace of the land.
“At this stage I want to call on the Nigerian media and the masses of the Nigerian people to come to the side of the Buhari administration in the ongoing effort at securing this nation from unscrupulous politicians, who don’t mean well for this country. Only this way the success of Federal Government’s effort to ensure security and fight against corruption in the land can be achieved,” he said.
