Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi has launched a war of words with Senator Adedayo Adeyeye over a group known as SWAGA for 2023.
SWAGA, which means South-West Agenda, has been pushing for somebody from the South-West as President of Nigeria in 2023. The group has been projecting the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, for the position and rallying support for him.
Adeyeye, who is the SAWAGA chief had recently attacked Fayemi for suspending an aide for supporting the group.
But in a statement made available to journalists by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Segun Dipe, Fayemi said Adeyeye has no right to create such a group in APC.
In the statement entitled “Adeyeye got it wrong,” the governor said, “One then wonders from where Adeyeye and his co-travellers derive their power to float another group within the APC, which they are calling APC members to start porting to. If this is not an anti-party move, then we wonder what it is.”
Governor Fayemi said that for Adeyeye to consider referring to himself as SWAGA Chairman within the APC was a misnomer.
“Perhaps Adeyeye needs to be reminded that the APC has since made pronouncements against setting up groups within the party. All groups, including the two most powerful -The Mandate Group and Justice Forum- ceased to exist. The resolution, Tinubu himself said, was to restate the often-stated position that the only group known is the APC and not any of the factional groups.
“No amount of character assassination from the likes of Adeyeye would reduce the governor’s relevance, and in his usual element, Fayemi would only wave it off as one the usual tantrums of a desperate politician in the search of relevance.”
The statement read further, “Our attention has been drawn to the latest statement by Senator Dayo Adeyeye, where he accused the governor of Ekiti State and Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Dr John Kayode Fayemi, of ‘suspected anti-party activities’ for which the latter should be called to order.
“In the statement credited to him, Senator Adeyeye described Dr Fayemi as a vicious leader with a mission to set APC on fire.
“What one could glean from the release credited to Adeyeye is that he was in a fight-flight mode while dishing out those words, and it felt really good for him to name-call or hit Fayemi, his perceived enemy below the belt.
“Or else, how could an Adeyeye, whose antecedents are well known, accuse a Fayemi, one of the most brilliant, most reliable and courtly leader within the APC as a party and Nigeria as a country, of being anti-party?”