Ekiti State Executive Council has asked for the unconditional release of all its officials arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The council, while speaking with newsmen in Ado Ekiti on Monday, at a press conference, said that the continued detention of Chief Toyin Ojo, the Commissioner for Finance and Mrs Yemisi Owolabi, the Accountant-General was .a classic abuse of power” and “a witch-hunt by pseudo democrats in Abuja to diabolically incapacitate the state government.”
The state Commissioner for Information, Youth and Sports Development, Mr. Lanre Ogunsuyi, who addressed newsmen, said the executive council after its fifth emergency meeting the arrest was “an aberration that once again portrays the Federal Government as incapable of understanding the best democratic ethos.”
Ogunsuyi added that the arrest of the two members of the executive was “in violation of a subsisting ruling of a court of competent jurisdiction restraining the supposed anti-graft body from inviting or arresting officials of the state.”
It therefore called on the EFCC to “respect the rule of law by abiding by the subsisting court ruling,” saying “the options available to EFCC was to either grant the arrested state officials administrative bail or charge them to court if they had breached the law.”
Ekiti state however alleged that it was ironic that the same EFCC had allegedly “ignored repeated earnest petitions of the state government to investigate and prosecute the accusation of wanton looting of the state” by the previous administration in the state “in spite of incontrovertible evidences”, saying it was “chasing shadows and hindering the efforts of the present administration at correcting the anomalies and making life more meaningful for the people in the state.”
The Ekiti executive also condemned what he said was “the lopsided policies of the Federal Government which were skewed towards developing only All Progressives Congress (APC) states at the expense of other states of the federation perceived to be stronghold of opposition.”
It said this was “a result of political intolerance and ignorance of the part of the Federal Government.”
You will recall that Chief Ojo and Mrs. Owolabi were arrested on September 28 and have since been in EFCC custody till the time of filing this report.
