Buhari can’t stop me from traveling abroad – Fayose
fayose
Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, has declared that President
Muhammadu Buhari lacks the constitutional power to prevent him from
traveling out of the country anytime he wishes to do so.
Addressing a press briefing at his office in Ado Ekiti on Monday, the
governor stressed that he enjoys constitutional immunity like the
President as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution, saying his constant
criticisms of Buhari does not amount to a security threat.
Fayose contended that state governors are not appendages of the
President, adding that he cannot be cowed by the Federal Government and
its agents “as a leading opposition figure in Nigeria.”
The governor said he was amazed that the “dangerous dimension of
compelling a sitting governor that enjoys constitutional immunity like
the President to obtain clearance from the Director General of the
Department of State Services (DSS) before traveling out of Nigeria can
ever be contemplated.”
Fayose also reacted through his Special Assistant on Public
Communication and New Media, Lere Olayinka, to a story carried by two
weekend newspapers that two governors, one from the Southwest and
another from the South -south have been slammed with travel ban
allegedly on the President’s order.
He said President Buhari and his agents should be mindful of the fact
that under a federal system of government, the states and national
government enjoy some autonomy, with sovereign power formally divided
between the national government and the states such that each state
retains some degree of control over its internal affairs.
He said: “Few days ago, when Governor Ayodele Fayose was reliably
informed that President Muhammadu Buhari had directed that he should be
banned from traveling outside Nigeria, he simply took the information as
mere rumour, concluding that disrespect for the constitution of Nigeria
and Buhari’s dictatorship would not be extended to the most ridiculous
level of preventing a governor elected just as the President from
traveling out of the country.
“The thinking of Governor Fayose was that even though the Buhari’s
presidency was capable of even attempting to prevent those opposed to
the President from breathing the air, it must still be sane enough to be
conscious of the consequences of placing any Nigerian under travel ban
without an order of the court, not to talk of a sitting governor that
enjoys constitutional immunity like the President.”
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