From Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti
Former Chief Whip of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Hon. Sunday
Akinniyi, on Tuesday quit the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and joined
the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Akinniyi said he decided to decamp to APC due to Governor Ayodele Fayose’s alleged high-handedness and disrespect for top leaders of the party, thereby causing internal crisis and mass defection of influential members to the opposition.
This came barely a week after a former Deputy Majority Leader of the Assembly, Hon. Ebenezer Alagbada, took similar action.
Addressing journalists in Ado Ekiti at the campaign office of Dr. Kayode Fayemi, the candidate of the APC, Akinniyi, who is representing Ikere constituency II, said he got the blessing of critical stakeholders in his constituency before taking the step.
He said he decided to join the campaign of Dr Fayemi, because of the alleged shabby way Fayose had treated Olukere of Ikere, Oba Ganiyu Obasoyin over supremacy battle with the Ogoga of Ikere Ekiti, Oba
Adejimi Adu.
Akinniyi accused Fayose of neglecting his constituents in major projects executed in Ikere Ekiti, while also alleging that the governor dribbled the community by reneging on his promise to give Olukere a staff of office.
“Governor Fayose said I should bring Olukere to him, which I did. He promised that he will ask the council of traditional rulers to go to
Olukere’s palace and examine the place and make recommendations on how
best they can recognise his stool, which they did.
“The Obas turned in their report and Governor Fayose never acted on it. Rather than recognising Olukere, they set him up for murder and put him in detention and that was why I decided not to support his governorship candidate, Prof Kolapo Olusola.
“All the projects he did in Ikere, including the dualisation were concentrated in constituency I. I used to raise issues about this and
that was why they removed me as the Chief Whip instead of the allegation of docility and sleeping at plenary they leveled against
meâ€, he stated.
Akinniyi alleged that he had severally been humiliated and threatened on the floor of the House by Fayose’s agents just because he raised issues that bordered on the welfare of his people.
He said this accounted for why he was labeled and portrayed as being disloyal and as enemy of the state government.
“Apart from all these, the PDP… had been in constant crises and now irreversibly divided and polarised to the
extent that more than half of its members have moved out of the party
in recent times to join APC.
“As a democrat, I cannot continue to remain in a party that had been polarised by internal crises because my continued stay will not allow
me to effectively represent my people.
“After due consultations with leaders and people of my constituency, I
hereby resign my membership of the PDP due to irreconcilable factionalisation of the party in Ekiti following the rancorous
governorship primary.
“In view of this, I use this opportunity to announce my defection to APC from effect from today, June 26, 2018â€, he said.
