The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Oyo State has described as unfortunate and regrettable the comments made by Governor Seyi Makinde on a live broadcast interview programme where he allegedly lampooned some judges of the Appellate Court whose verdict as delivered on November 11, 2019 in the case before them was clearly against him.
While reacting to a question about his feelings after the final judgment given by the Supreme Court which validated his election as governor of the state, Engr. Makinde was quoted to have lashed out on two Judges of the Court of Appeal sitting in Ibadan whose position which formed the majority judgment set aside the nullification of the petition filed by the APC’s gubernatorial candidate, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, and thus threw the PDP camp into panic until last Tuesday when the Apex Court laid everything to rest.
In a statement issued in Ibadan and made available to journalists at the weekend by its Assistant Publicity Secretary, Prince Ayobami Adejumo, Oyo APC said that it was unbecoming of a sitting governor to have made an attempt to drag a section of the Judiciary in the mud in order to express his joy over an unexpected court victory and exhibit his unbridled penchant for playing the ostrich.
“We watched and listened to the live interview programme hurriedly packaged by the Governor’s media handlers to herald the superfluous celebration of the Supreme Court verdict which came in their favour unexpectedly. The highpoint of the interview was the needless embarrassment caused the people of the state when Gov. Makinde said that the judges who ruled against him at the Appellate Court were compromised by those whose names he could not mention.
“The governor was so emphatic in his careless statement that all his followers who accompanied to the studio were caught in palpable awe and bewilderment. Apparently, Gov. Makinde was prepared to take the said judges to the cleaners while he singled out the judge who ruled in his favour as the only upright man among the panel of judges. This is on record and we demand an apology from the governor to the Honorable Justices affected as well as the nation’s Judiciary as a whole.
“We feel shortchanged with the composition of the panel of judges of the Supreme Court which sat on Oyo gubernatorial tussle last Tuesday as the wife of a PDP stalwart was made the Chairman and the same panel threw out the Appellate Court’s judgment which was in our favour but as democrats and law abiding citizens, we took everything in good faith and we have resolved to move on.
“Furthermore, Gov. Makinde continued with his usual grandstanding when he said that his predecessor received a sum of N5.2b on May 6, 2019 and left only N19, 000 in the state government’s account when handing over on May 29, 2019. But the governor did not add that Sen. Ajimobi, within the same period, paid staff salaries and offset some other bills which would have made the new government face the challenges of unnecessary debts in their first day in office.
“Funny enough, Gov. Makinde shot himself in the leg again when he unconsciously stated that on assumption of office, he was able to mop up public funds kept in about 67 different accounts belonging to the state government and this he put at about N6.2b. As if this was not enough, the exposed himself as tried to fool the public over the stupendous financial resources spent so far on light decorations in some parts of Ibadan.
“We are now asking Gov. Makinde to come clean on the amount of cash gifts from corporate organizations which he has used on the superfluous road and junction decorations in part of the state capital while we also urge him to be aware of the fact that the time for real governance is here as against the cosmetic approach which portrays him as still being in a campaign mood several months after his assumption of office.” APC concluded.
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