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Fayose May Return to Nigeria This Month
By Philip Ogunmade, 07.04.2007

Indications emerged last night that the embattled former governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Ayo Fayose, will return to Nigeria before the end of this month.
A source close to the former governor told THISDAY that Fayose predicated his decision to return to Nigeria on the new trend in the country, which according to him, seems to have created a conducive atmosphere for some of his colleagues who had similar problems.
According to him, Fayose said if the former governor of Plateau State, Chief Joshua Dariye and his Abia State counterpart, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, among others have hitherto not been arrested or prosecuted over allegations of corruption levelled against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), his continued stay in hiding is “baseless.”
Besides, the source further disclosed that Fayose also waxed confident to return to the country because of his perception that since his departure from Ekiti State last October, the state has never been free from crises of varying degrees, a situation which he argued has vindicated him that he was not the problem of Ekiti as widely believed.
He added that Fayose recalled that after his purported impeachment by former members of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, the state has gone through one crisis or the other, culminating in the declaration of a state of emergency and the subsequent appointment of Brigadier Tunji Olurin as the sole administrator of the state for six months.
The source added that Fayose chronicled all that had befallen the state since his exit, including how eventually it was another speaker, Mr. Tope Ademilusi that Olurin handed over to as the acting governor upon the expiration of his six months of emergency rule on April 19, this year and not Mr. Friday Aderemi who was the Speaker of the Assembly who presided over his impeachment proceedings.
Fayose, he also stated, also reviewed the post election crisis which has rocked Ekiti and thus pitching the Action Congress (AC) gubernatorial candidate at the April 14 election, Dr. Kayode Fayemi against the state governor, Engr. Segun Oni. Fayemi has asked the Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Ado Ekiti to upturn Oni's election.
Another crisis which the source said boosted Fayose's boldness to come out of his hiding was the recent quashing of the impeachment of Fayose's enstranged deputy, Mr. Abiodun Aluko as well as the sudden amendment of the House rule at the eve of the expiration of last tenure, which authorises only a member from the ruling party to emerge as the speaker. Both the AC and the PDP have equal number of 13 lawmakers each.
Fayose was impeached last October by the then sitting lawmakers, after unilaterally sacking the then Chief Judge of the state, Justice Kayode Bamisile and his eventual replacement by Justice Jide Aladejana.
Bamisile was sacked by the House, over allegations that he appointed members of Fayose's family into the seven-man panel assigned to investigate allegations of corruption and gross misconduct levelled against him. The impeachment was viewed as flawed, because the Constitution vested the power of appointment, promotion and dismissal of a chief judge only in the state govenor or the Judicial Service Commission and not the House of Assembly.
Eventually, the panel appointed by Bamisile sat once and cleared Fayose of all the allegations levelled against him, while the new panel constituted by Aladejana proclaimed him guilty, leading to his impeachment.
Meanwhile, Fayose had 24 hours to his impeachment disappeared from the Government House and has since gone into hiding, but occasionally speaks from his hide-out.

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