Ekiti State governor Ayodele Fayose has blamed the Department of State Services for leaking an edited copy of his telephone with the governor of Rivers State Nyesom Wike to incriminate him and Wike.

“If the President and his hatchet men in the DSS, EFCC and other federal government agencies do not know what to do other than to record phone conversations of their perceived political foes, they should just resign and save the country from this harrowing experience,” Fayose said in a statement through Lere Olayinka, his special assistant on public communications and new media.

An online medium, Sahara Reporters, on Thursday, published an audio tape in which a person purported to be Wike confessed to how he used his position as the governor of the state to influence the outcome of the bloody December 10 Rivers rerun polls.

Though the Ekiti State governor did not disclaim the leaked audio tape, he, however, stated that it had been doctored.

“If the President and his hatchet men in the DSS, EFCC and other federal government agencies do not know what to do other than to record phone conversations of their perceived political foes, they should just resign and save the country from this harrowing experience.”

He insisted the federal government was threatened by his popularity and endorsement by notable religious leaders such as Enoch Adeboye and Pastor W. F. Kumuyi. The ruling All Progressives Congress thus resorted to using the DSS and other security agencies to intimidate him and other leading opposition figures, he said.

The governor described the DSS secretly recording his telephone conversations as the height of the political rascality, manipulation, oppression, suppression and irresponsibility by agents of the federal government that are trying so hard to cover up the crimes they perpetrated against the people of Rivers State.

“They should even go beyond taping of my lines and come to live with me in Ekiti government house so that they can do per seconds live recordings of whatever I say because in the year 2017, by the grace of God, I will still say more without apology.”

While maintaining that the APC led federal government do not respect the laws of the country, Governor Fayose said: “They know that what they are doing is illegal and clear contravention of Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which provides that; ‘The privacy of citizens, their homes, correspondence, telephone conversations and telegraphic communications is hereby guaranteed and protected.’

“However, because they are criminally minded and are running a tyrannical government, using the DSS, EFCC and other agencies, one is not surprised at the current development.” (The Guardian)

•Governor Fayose.