According to Punch, the confrontation between Fayose and Ekiti State
House of Assembly heightened on Wednesday with the government sealing off a filling station belonging to Speaker Adewale Omirin.The speaker’s filling station, T. Five Integrated Service, is one of the four the government closed down in Ado-Ekiti to avert “unimaginable fire accident with attendant fatalities.”
The government, in a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Idowu Adelusi, directed all the owners of the affected filling stations to report at the Ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and Urban Development with letters of approval.
Reacting to the closure, Omirin alleged that the governor ordered the closure of the filling station in order to intimidate and coerce him to join the PDP and dump his party, the APC.
He said, “I called the governor to confirm what the honourable member told me about the plan to close my filling station. The governor denied any such plan, swearing that he would not pursue any victimisation agenda against his opponents. But only yesterday (Wednesday), the governor ordered the closure of the filling station, citing environmental factor.”
He said he met all the necessary environmental laws and got the necessary approval for the station.
The speaker has vowed in a statement by his Special Adviser (Media), Wole Olujobi, not to “buckle undue political pressure to abandon his party for the PDP for selfish and pecuniary motives.”
The speaker wondered why Fayose would start victimising those who did not share his political belief.
The statement quoted Omirin as saying that another assembly member, Joseph Olugbemi, had told him that the governor had made up his mind to close the filling station over his refusal to join the PDP.
Olugbemi is one of the six APC members that defected to the PDP on the day Fayose was inaugurated as the new governor of the state.
Omirin recalled that he had earlier promised the governor that the assembly would work with him in the interest of Ekiti people, to deliver dividends of democracy.
Omirin said he had a background of political fidelity anchored on progressive democratic practice and so would not abandon the principle in pursuit of selfish agenda.
He insisted that the present atmosphere in the state does not call for high-handedness and persecution.
He warned that attacks on them would smear the relationship between the Executive and Legislature.
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