President Goodluck Jonathan, on Tuesday, met behind closed doors with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) flag bearers in the June 21 and August 9 governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states respectively, Mr Ayodele Fayose and Senator Iyiola Omisore.
The meeting, which held at the president’s office, State House, Abuja, was said to have been called over preparations for the polls.
The meeting lasted about one hour, after which Fayose, in a chat with State House correspondents, blamed Sunday’s violence in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital on supporters of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
He said the skirmish did not come up for discussion at the meeting with the president, but explained that trouble started when some supporters of the APC waylaid some of his supporters, who were returning from his campaign office and killed one of them.
According to Fayose, the initial plan of the APC supporters was to remove his branded T-shirt on the deceased and replace it with APC uniform to give an impression that they were attacked.
He said, “What happened on Sunday was that APC supporters went about sweeping the feet of the President who on Saturday led PDP bigwigs to a mega rally in Ado-Ekiti. I don’t even have any objection to that because that is part of politics.
“There are some of my supporters who always sleep over in my campaign office. These people wearing my branded green T-shirts were returning home and the APC people accosted them.
“They macheted some of my supporters and even killed one of them. They were at the point of removing the deceased’s branded T-shirt and replacing it with APC shirt when the OC MOPOL arrived the scene.
“As he was trying to stop them, Fayemi drove in to block him. It was when they wanted to mob the police officer that he shot teargas into the air”.
Fayose boasted that despite attacks, his supporters would not be deterred and are still fully mobilised to vote for him in the forthcoming election.
Fayose boasted that despite attacks, his supporters would not be deterred and were still fully mobilised to vote for him in the forthcoming election.