It has been revealed that security operatives have placed two leading PDP governors under security watch and travel restrictions imposed on them.
Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose
It has been revealed that the federal government plans to impose a foreign travel ban on Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State and his Peoples Democratic Party counterpart, Nyesom Wike.
According to a report by ThisDay, this is as a result of the numerous verbal attacks against the president and the All Progressives Congress (APC). The report further stated that the government at the centre did not take kindly to Fayose’s utterances during a recent visit to China.
According to the source, the presidency was embarrassed when the outspoken governor from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) asked the Chinese government not to honour the recent loan deal signed by the two sovereign governments.
“The federal government was both alarmed and embarrassed when Fayose went to China to oppose the loan deal,” said the security source, who disclosed that since then the governor had been placed under watch, including his planned foreign trips.
The source further added, saying: “Under the federal system of government, state governors are not appendages of the president and as a leading opposition figure in Nigeria, he cannot be cowed by President Muhammadu Buhari and his agents.”
However, Fayose had on Tuesday debunked any claim by the security operatives to stop him from travelling outside the country.
At a press conference by his media aide, Lere Olayinka, he said that “whenever he wished to travel out of Nigeria, he will do so in the full glare of the public”.
“I am not surprised or disappointed by this latest plot of the Buhari administration because the president that we know is a man without any atom of respect for the rights of Nigerians as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and this he demonstrated as a military dictator and is now demonstrating it as a democratically elected president,” Fayose said in the statement.
It was also gathered that Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has been placed on the same security watch with Fayose. Wike, who had been engaged in a power struggle with his immediate predecessor and current Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, is being watched over the security situation in Rivers State in particular and the Niger Delta in general.
“The possible reason for the planned action revolves around Fayose’s utterances against the president and the likelihood of making the same utterances abroad like he did in China.
“Secondly, is the suspicion against Wike with respect to the ongoing crisis in Niger Delta and the risk of what he might do outside the shores of the country,” the intelligence source said.
However, many have set aside the claims as they believe that security operatives have no constitutional power to stop the governors from travelling outside the country.