Ekiti State House of Assembly lawmakers have asked President Muhammadu Buhari to order the release of their colleagues in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) custody. The lawmakers stormed the National Assembly in Abuja today, March 10, demanding the immediate released of their members, who have been arrested since March 4.
The Chairman of the Ekiti House Committee on Information, Honorable Gboyega Aribisogan, who alleged that the DSS carried out the President’s order, said Buhari should tell his ‘boys’ to free the detained legislators. While briefing journalists at the National Assembly complex, Aribisogan said:
“Like we have maintained, plotters of evil against the government of Ayodele Fayose and by extension the people of Ekiti State will not get our support. 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 continued:
“Gone are those days in Nigeria when impeachment notices against governors were signed on the table of the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and this time around, if the DSS is programmed to play the role played by the EFCC under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, it will fail.”
“Also, if this harassment and intimidation is about 2018, we wish to state unequivocally that we in the PDP are 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. We won’t be intimidated by any agency of the Federal Government, the DSS inclusive.”
“We have also been told that some of us have been slated for arrest and detention and it is on this note that we have come 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.”
According to report, the operatives of the DSS had stormed the State House of Assembly complex in Ado Ekiti and took away four of the 26 members to its Abuja office.