The All Progressives Congress (APC) has rejected Monday’s White Paper barring Dr Kayode Fayemi from holding any public office for 10 years.
Fayemi was a former governor of Ekiti State and the current Minister of Mines and Steel.
Reacting to the development on Tuesday in Ado Ekiti, the party described the action as malicious and irregular.
A statement by the party’s Ekiti State Publicity Secretary, Mr Taiwo Olatunbosun and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) also described the white paper as a desperate bid by Gov. Ayo Fayose to embarrass the former governor at all cost and by all means.
It described Fayose’s action as a failed desperation that “cannot stand the test of judicial scrutiny in both form and content”.
The APC further described both the panel and white paper as a kangaroo stunt to nail Fayemi, saying the verdict will not stand in the face of illegality that went into the exercise.
Besides, it described Fayose as “a man who cannot survive in a society where the law works”, regretting that even lawyers in his government failed to teach him some basic tenets of how law works in placing ban on Nigerian citizens to hold public office.
“All Nigerians know that Fayose is recklessly lawless and cannot survive in societies where the law works.
“His so-called White Paper is not only laughable but also a disgrace to all Ekiti people home and abroad with the way that Fayose has taken ignorance, vendetta and debauchery to a ridiculous level because we knew all along that this is what Fayose wanted to do.
“We had expected his Attorney General, if he knows his onions, to have advised him that only a competent court of law can bar Nigerians from holding public office under the Nigerian Constitution.
“A situation where Fayose assembled PDP members and pliable civil servants as a panel with a strict directive to indict Fayemi at all costs and thereafter issue a White Paper banning him from holding public office cannot hold water in a society where the law works.
“With the way he is conducting himself desperately to stop Fayemi from holding public office, we are convinced that Fayose is seriously going through a political haemorrhage and therefore his resorting to political desperation and unconstitutional means to nail our leader and a serving Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by any means possible.
“Neither Fayose nor Ekiti State Government has the power to bar or prevent Dr Fayemi or any other citizen from holding public office but a competent court of law.
“Such wishful thinking cannot stand judicial scrutiny and we advise Fayose and his pitiable undertakers to read the Supreme Court judgment and Atiku Abubakar in similar matter.
“We expect someone occupying such an exalted position of a governor like Fayose to be properly briefed and educated on the limitations of his powers as the head of the executive arm of government primarily to formulate policy and implement laws rather than interpreting the law and worst still, assuming the position of a judge in a matter involving him as a party.
“We are not going to lose any sleep over a biased political report by a panel of PDP members set up by a PDP governor for the purpose of framing up our leader as a way of settling political scores,’’ the statement read in part. (NAN)