Ex-Ekiti Lawmaker blasts Fayose over comment on Obasanjo

Hon. Adetunji Orisalade, former Deputy Speaker, Ekiti State House of Assembly, on Monday lambasted Governor Ayo Fayose for querying the wealth of Nigeria’s former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.

Governor Fayose

Orisalade, a lawyer, who described Fayose’s comments as “a height of irresponsibility”, explained that being the governor of a state confers some importance, but “announcing your importance by putting anybody down and soiling their image, irrespective of their age and social/political standing in the country, is in bad taste.”

Fayose had, last Sunday, raised doubts about the source of the wealth of Obasanjo, and noted that, “I told everybody when Obasanjo left prison, ‘did he declare his assets? The (Obasanjo’s) Library today, where did the money come from?”

The All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain maintained that it was time Fayose cautioned himself from making unguarded statements, lest, “he risks consequences which neither him nor any of his fast-depleting list of supporters would be able either to imagine or even manage.”

His words: “Fayose’s extreme outbursts are worsening by the day. Is it a lust for recognition or a need to tell the world that he is a state governor that is pushing him? Why is he such a black sheep and gadfly?

“He seems to have a list of perceived opposition figures he feels he must run down and discredit through asinine aspersions. Last Sunday, it was the turn of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo whose wealth he queried. Can Fayose, a long-discredited personality raise doubts about Obasanjo?

“This man has queried every justifiable and justiceable move of even President Muhammadu Buhari. Before Buhari’s emergence, he had condemned him (Buhari) as an aged invalid who would die before his inauguration!

“He has continued to trumpet the unreadiness and incompetence of the APC-led Federal Government in running the affairs of the country. It will be sheer magic to expect in few months a reversal of the extreme rot and curse the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) bequeathed to Nigeria which lasted whole 16 years!

“He cannot blame Obasanjo for separating himself from him (Fayose) more so when he was creating lots of nuisance all over. Baba would have been seriously ridiculed by now if he had not detached himself from Fayose.

“He is now pained that he has no God-father again in Obasanjo, and that explains the attacks. A proper and well-bred Yoruba man would not do that to Obasanjo, having regard to his age and respectability within the Nigerian nation and beyond. But Fayose, a misguided irritant would do that and think he is serving some interest. It is a desecration of Yoruba traditional values”, Orisalade said.