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.”
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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.”
The Nation.
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