Wole Balogun, Ado Ekiti
Ekiti State Government and Lere Olayinka, the spokesman of the immediate past governor of the state, Ayo Fayose, yesterday, exchanged verbal invectives over the sudden closure of a radio station ‘Our Peoples FM’, allegedly owned by Fayose.
The staff of the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, alongside policemen from the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU), besieged the one -storey twin-building at about 9.38a.m, to post a notice of closure on the wall.
The enforcement staff and the CTU operatives entered the building and ordered the workers, led by the General Manager (GM) of the station, Layi Oyawa, out of the premises, which led to a confrontation between the station’s GM and the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Ademiloye Fasiku.
The policemen ordered the staff to switch off the transmitter and ordered the property shut down, for contravening building development order.
Speaking with newsmen, Fasiku claimed that four letters had been written to the station on the need to comply with some laid down regulations, but the letters were rebuffed.
He said: “We are here basically to enforce compliance with urban development plan of the government. We’ve given them notices, but they never responded. We asked them to submit their approved plan for clearance, but nothing was done.
“Application was submitted to the ministry, on September 7, 2018, by Mr. Olusola Michael Adeyinka, with the title, “Application for Mast construction,” without indication to use the property for radio station.
“The second application by Finger Print Consult Associate, also, failed to mention radio station as part of its proposals. The ministry was able to deduce the use which the applications were meant for, through the working drawings, and further observations from the filed documents obtained from the ministry are in tandem with the ministry’s recommendation as listed below.”
He said following the discrepancies, a penalty charge of N985,000 was recommended, but was not paid.
“We, therefor, recommended that since the developer of People’s FM Radio Station has failed to mention in any of the submitted applications, the original intention to use the development for radio station and not for mast only, failed to comply with the ministry’s directive to stop further activities on the site, but went further with broadcasting operations, it is expedient for Ekiti State government to give a directive to the appropriate agency, to effect the closure of People’s FM Radio Station, as a deterrent to others who may want to undermine the laws of the state,” he added.
On his part, Oyawa described the station’s closure as unfortunate and brutish.
“They said they wrote notices to us; who did they address it to? From whom did the letter emanate?
“The only letter I got was from the Signage and Advertisement Agency. Why is this coming at this time? However, we are going to address it the legal way,” he said.