Alleged frame up: Ekiti AG refutes witness’ claim to frame up

Ekiti State Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Ajayi Owoseni, has refuted claims by the Personal Assistant to late Omolaye Aderiye, Gbolahan Okeowo that he was tutored to make statements by people loyal to Governor Ayo Fayose to frame up those alleged to have murdered the former Chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Chief Omolafe Aderiye.
Aderiye was murdered during the political crisis that preceded the inuaguration of Fayose.
In a newspaper on Wednesday, October 28, Okeowo was quoted as saying: “I state categorically that persons standing trial for the murder of Chief Aderiye in Charge No: HAD/12C/2014: The State v Adebayo Aderiye and 6 others, were not involved and neither did they participate in the murder of Chief Aderiye on the 25th day of September, 2014.
Also, in same national newspaper of Saturday October 31, 2015, the Ekiti All Progressive Congress ( APC) urged the police to arrest and prosecute the State Attorney General and Special Assistant to the Governor on Public Communication and Social Media, Mr Lere‎ Olayinka, over allegation of tutoring Okeowo to frame up the suspects.
Okeowo was quoted as saying, “Soon after Dr. Ayo Fayose was sworn in as Governor of Ekiti State, I was invited by Mr. Owoseni Ajayi, who was the the Special Assistant (Legal) to Dr. Fayose who produced the statement I had given to the Police on the 26th September, 2014, wherein I wrote concerning what I witnessed to the effect that I did not recognize any person as the assailant and either did I mention the names of the persons standing trial as the suspects in the said statement.
“I was put under considerable pressure including threats to my life and members of my family to write another statement which was tendered in court on the 7th day of October, 2015, the content which were dictated to me by Mr. Owoseni Ajayi, in company of Mr. Lere Olayinka, the media aide to Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Ayo Fayose sometime in October, 2014, which I backdated to 26th September, 2014 on their instructions.
Reacting to Okeowo’s claims, Ajayi said: “My attention was drawn to a publication on a national daily yesterday, that one of the witnesses called by us in the prosecution,who had earlier made a statement to the police and confirmed that statement to the examination in chief before it was adjourned for a cross examination recounted the statement now that he was tutored to make the said statement in the office of the Attorney General of the state.
The subject matter in defence is prejudice; it is against the principle of law for anybody to assist him to go and swear to an affidavit in Federal High Court, Akure, after he has given evidence in chief, he has been crossed examined and he never gave any reference to any of those issues which he swore to in that affidavit in Akure.
“Secondly, the accused person, witnesses to criminal cases don’t give statements in the office of the Attorney General. Statements are made in the statutory office of police stations and recorded by IPO assigned for those functions. It is only when the police have confirmed their investigations, statement have been obtained, and investigation have been concluded, if it is criminal cases of that nature, that they usually refer the case file to the DPP’s Office.
It is at that stage that the DPP will take over; the ministry of justice can take over and make their necessary comments and let me state emphatically too, that as at September when this case of Aderiye murder occurred, I was not the Attorney General because we have not been sworn-in then, so to prelude that sometime in the month of October, that his statement was removed by the police is a direct indictment on the Police Authority and I expect the police to investigate that.
So, as far as am I concerned, that particular person who is just a witness to us has committed perjury in that affidavit which was sworn in the Federal High Court, Akure. He should have sworn it in the Federal High Court, Ado Ekiti or the State High Court where the matter is holding and all those statement he made, he never made an allusion to them when he had the opportunity in the open court.
As at the time that matter occurred, I was not the Attorney General, the office of the Attorney General is not where statements are taken and the police which is long established statutory organisation cannot subject themselves and their statutory responsibility to anywhere else where statements which is the police station: It can not be any other place, we need the police authority to confirm whether it is true he was brought in to come and make statement in the office of the Attorney General and we need the police to confirm that before he will now be taken up for perjury.”