Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi has hailed the reinstatement of the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Isa Salami by the National Judicial Council (NJC), describing the development as the “triumph of truth.”
Governor Fayemi in a statement yesterday lauded the NJC for demonstrating an uncommon courage in upholding the truth, even as he commended Justice Salami for standing firm in the face of persecution.
Fayemi in the statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Olayinka Oyebode, said the NJC should be commended for insisting on the truth in spite of subtle and overt intimidation. He noted that Salami’s only ‘sin’ was that he was courageous enough to speak truth to power.
The statement also commended Justice Salami for his refusal to be compromised in spite of the persecution from different quarters. It described Salami as a man who spoke truth to power by insisting that vote robbers must not go scot free.
He said the reinstatement of Justice Salami has not only vindicated the man, it has also put a final seal on the machination of election riggers.
According to the statement “This is a classical case of the triumph of truth. The triumph of good over evil and light over darkness. The NJC should be commended for demonstrating uncommon courage.
“It must be noted that Justice Salami has been persecuted unjustly for months by those who were desperate to score cheap political points by peddling falsehood and manipulating facts and figures in the bid to discredit the man.
“Mention must be made of the desperation with which the likes of Segun Oni and his cohorts pursued their goal of demonizing Justice Salami- a man who was clearly head and shoulders a paragon of judicial excellence in the murky waters of a political lynch mob. This they did through numerous dubious publications and endless manipulation of judicial process.
“In the height of their desperation and the bid to give a shadow of credibility to their falsehood, also dragged the names of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Governor Rauf Aregbesola and Dr Kayode Fayemi in the mud, even though in statistical terms the vote robbery overturned was minuscule placed against the electoral malfeasance of 2007.
“Piqued by the decision of the court asking them to vacate the office they had occupied fraudulently, these busy bodies started moving from one court room to another peddling lies and seeking to compromise the course of justice.
“And when they finally failed they resulted to cheap blackmail. First, they claimed that the Justices were compromised. Later they sought, howbeit in a crude manner, to drag the judiciary into the mud by alleging a compromise, even while such could not be substantiated. Determined to rubbish the judiciary, they sought the impossible- getting the court to reverse itself, and while they boasted of getting that done, the judiciary felt it was time to put an end to the melodrama.
“Now that justice has finally been done by the reinstatement of Justice Salami, this has finally sounded the death knell of vote robbers and their judicial handmaidens. In the words of the immortal Martin Luther King Jnr. “The arc of the moral universe is long but always bends towards justice”. Truth has prevailed at last.”
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Last modified: May 11, 2012
