The Ekiti State Peoples Democratic Party Secretariat on Ajilosun Road in Ado Ekiti was on Thursday taken over by the police as supporters of former Governor Ayodele Fayose and those of Senator Biodun Olujimi clashed.
Windows of the secretariat were vandalised and the tyres of a white Toyota Sienna vehicle parked in the compound were deflated during the clash.
The two groups were at the secretariat for a date with the appeal panel on the PDP ward congresses which held in the state on Saturday.
Olujimi, who alleged that the supporters of the former governor attacked her supporters as they were jittery “because we caught them in that dastardly act at the Petim Guest House on Saturday, they thought they could right the wrongs with the appeal panel by being violent.”
She said, “Just because we caught them, they were on the offensive and they had to put up some violence. I don’t like violence and we will not allow violence to define us as a party. Whoever wants violence must either drop that and stay or ship out of the PDP, we won’t tolerate that.
“They beat some people; I mean some of my supporters, but I was not touched. If they were right, why were they violent today? You could all attest to the fact that no collation was done regarding the ward congresses. We didn’t do any collation, so the Taraba State Deputy Governor, Haruna Manu, who was the chairman of the ward congresses, has no results to present.”
But Fayose’s media aide, Lere Olayinka, who alleged that the violence must have been perpetrated by Olujimi’s supporters so that they could blame Fayose’s men, said, “The attack is all politics”.
Olayinka, who said that Olujimi had accepted that her group lost at the ward congresses by approaching the appeal panel with petition, said, “They were the one who filed a petition before the appeal panel. Do you file a petition against congresses you claimed to have won?
“The appeal panel did not come to the party secretariat until around 2pm. Senator Olujimi mobilised people to the secretariat as early as 8am.
“It was when we got information that members of the appeal panel had arrived that the former deputy governor, Prof. Kolapo Olusola, and some of our leaders went there to submit our own report, not a petition, of how the congresses went. Her supporters on seeing the crowd that accompanied Prof. Olusola were intimidated.
“Senator Olujimi cannot deny that she paid thugs in buses around there. Can you recall that her group mobilised thugs to the Petim Guest House on Saturday, where they deflated tyres and destroyed vehicles?”

By Abiodun Nejo