Counsel for Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), says his client is not aware of the suit reportedly filed against him by wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, Aisha.
Aisha, it was learnt, had dragged Fayose to court for repeatedly alleging that she was one of those indicted for involvement in the multi-million dollars Halliburton scandal.
An online medium, Premium Times, had on Wednesday reported to have obtained a copy of the July 20, 2016 suit which Aisha filed against Fayose.
But the governor’s lawayer, Ozekhome, told our correspondent, in a text message on Thursday, that his client had not been served with Aisha’s court papers.
He, however, said he was eagerly waiting to be served with the court papers, saying the suit would answer questions on the legality of suing a governor who had immunity under Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution.
He said, “We have not been served Mrs. Aisha Buhari’s writ against Governor Fayose. We are waiting for this legally and jurisprudentially titillating and ground-breaking suit that will open up new vistas and rip open the yet undiscovered entrails of Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution, which grants immunity to the President, Vice-President, governors and deputy governors.”
The President’s wife had on many occasions denied involvement in the Halliburton scam with a threat to sue Fayose if he did not stop dragging her into a fraud she claimed to know nothing about.
A former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Lamorde, had also declared that Aisha was not one of Nigerians mentioned in the scam or indicted for the scandal.
The EFCC investigated the scam during Lamorde’s tenure as the anti-graft boss.
But in spite of these, Fayose had insisted that the President’s wife was involved in the fraud in which Nigeria lost huge sums of money, alleging that the Federal Government’s anti-corruption war was selective and politically-motivated.
The governor claimed that Aisha Buhari was named in a document that stated she was one of those indicted in the celebrated scandal.