Yinka Ayefele, a musician, says
the meeting with Abiola Ajimobi, governor of Oyo state, on Thursday was more or
less a set-up by the governor’s team.
In an interview with PUNCH, the
musician said he demanded a private meeting with the governor but was shocked
when pictures of his team and that of the governor surfaced online a few
minutes into the meeting.
The pictures drew the ire of
Ayefele’s supporters who felt he succumbed to begging over the demolition of
his Music House.
But Ayefele, who spoke through
David Ajiboye, his publicist, said he had to come to the public to set the
records straight.
Ajiboye said Ajimobi told them
that he could have saved the situation if only they had come to beg him.
“On Thursday, we were at a
meeting organised by the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) at Golden
Tulip when we got a call from one of the governorship aspirants in the state.
He told us that the governor would like to see us,” he said.
“I was at the BON meeting with
Yinka Ayefele and his younger brother . We felt that since they were the ones
that invited us, we should honour the governor’s call; so we excused ourselves
from the BON meeting and went to the governor’s office.
“We got there at about 12pm but
the governor did not get to his office till about 4pm . We did not leave the
governor ’s office until about 7pm. I was at the meeting with Yinka Ayefele and
his younger brother.
“When the governor came into the
office, we all prostrated to greet him being that he is older than us and we
told them that we did not want cameras. We wanted a closed-door meeting with
the governor so he asked the pressmen to excuse us but his private photographer
did not leave the room. We noticed that while we were talking with the
governor, the photographer was taking our pictures and uploading them on their
Twitter handle immediately.
“The governor later invited his
team to come and join us in the meeting; his team comprised the commissioner
for information, a governorship aspirant in the state and about four special
assistants. The governor told us his grievances. He told us that he could have
saved the situation if only we had come to see him. He felt we ought to have
come to beg him, and our chairman, Yinka Ayefele, pointed it out that we had
since told the commissioner for information to book an appointment with the
governor . He further said that he called the SSG to help him book an
appointment with the governor even before this incident happened and the
commissioner corroborated his claims but said that the governor was unavailable
at the time.”
Ajiboye said role of traditional
rulers in the meeting was a coincidence as they were in the governor’s office
as of the time Ayefele and Ajimobi met.
“Coincidentally, there were about
ten monarchs who were also waiting to see the governor as at the time we were
waiting for him,” he said.
“They were led by the alaafin of
Oyo; so when the obas saw Ayefele, they decided to rally round him. After they
had met with the governor, they came back to meet Ayefele and possibly plead on
his behalf to the governor.
“That was when they allowed the
cameramen to enter and we felt it was more or less a set-up because we wanted a
close -door meeting. We did not want cameras but there was nothing we could do
because we were at the governor ’s office.
“The monarchs appealed to the
governor to help Ayefele rebuild the music house. After the monarchs left, the
governor also left us with his team and told us to iron things out with them.
They claimed that they wrote several letters to us but that we ignored them;
they went ahead to say that we did not have a certificate of occupancy for the
building and we showed them all the proof.
“They all agreed except one
commissioner who said that we have to do damage control because we have dented
his personality and that of Oyo state government. We had to tell him that it
was beyond us because we did not ask people to abuse their government. If they
had not demolished the Music House, people would not lay curses on the
government.
“That was what happened at the
meeting. The governor’s team said they would get across to the governor on
Thursday night to brief him and they would get back to us. We would wait for
what the outcome of their meeting with the governor would be. We are not taking
any position now.”
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