Goodluck wades into Ekiti drama asking police to carry out their duties with restraint

FORMER president Dr Goodluck Jonathan has called on Nigerian security agencies to exercise caution in the way they carry out their duties in Ekiti State ahead of Saturday's gubernatorial elections after yesterday's drama involving Governor Ayo Fayose.

Amid dramatic scenes yesterday, Governor Fayose recorded several videos showing him wearing a neck collar after allegedly being manhandled by the police. He claimed that the police had fired tear gas at him and he had been physically assaulted during a raid on Government House.

Although the event has been dismissed as a political stunt aimed at generating sympathy for Governor Fayose's Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of Saturday's polls, it has raised the political temperature. According to the police, they were only called to Government House to disperse an angry crowd after Governor Fayose refused to pay taxi drivers who heeded his call not to be on the road when President Muhammadu Buhari visited on Monday and insisted on being paid.

A police spokesman said that they managed to disperse the angry drivers who were confronting Government House staff and Governor Fayose was not even present when this happened. However, the governor claimed one policemen hit him with a rifle butt, another shot at him and it is all part of a plan to rig the Ekiti State governorship elections on Saturday.

Seeking to calm down the temperature, Dr Jonathan enjoined security personnel to act within the ambit of the laws of the land. He added that the presence of armed security operatives was meant to give voters the confidence to come out on election day and vote for candidates of their choice and not to intimidate them.

Dr Jonathan said: “I am appealing to the security agencies deployed to Ekiti State for the governorship election to carry out their duties according to the laws of the land by securing the state in a manner that will enable a peaceful electoral process. If it is true that the state governor Mr Ayodele Fayose was assaulted as reported in the media, my appeal is that such should not be allowed to happen again, since the governor’s constitutional immunity guarantees that he should be given official protection to freely conduct the business of governing the state.”

Yesterday, Governor Fayose was crying as he narrated his ordeal in the hands of policemen to a PDP rally in Ado Ekiti. He said that if anything happens to him, the inspector-general of police should be held accountable.