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By: Adeolu Adeyemo – Osogbo
Osun state Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Friday raised the alarm, accusing the All Progressive Congress (APC) of putting the state under siege and setting up a killer squad in the state to unleash terror on its members ahead of the March 18th, House of Assembly elections in the state.
The Chairman of the party, Dr Akindele Adekunle, who raised the alarm at a press conference held in Osogbo added that the APC had equally imported notorious armed thugs from Lagos to be disguised as police operatives to cause mayhem and unrest in the State during the exercise.
According to him, “to the dismay of our party, these armed men were ferried into the state and were received at the private home of the national secretary of the All Progressive Congress, who from good authority, handed the armed men handouts of leaders and members of the PDP to be arrested and detained for no just cause. ”
“We call you to raise alarm on an ongoing unjust, unfair, draconian and dictatorial raid and arrest of PDP leaders across Osun state.”
“As I am addressing you today, PDP leaders are being hunted and arrested in Gestapo style across Osun State, houses of our leaders are being surrounded and raised even without search warrants. Where our leaders are not at home, their families are arrested and their cars taken away on various false pretexts.”
“An undemocratic statewide operation is ongoing designed to pick and lock up prominent PDP leaders ahead of next state election. Our surprise is that such mass raid is being conducted against a ruling political party in clear violation of fundamental human rights of those affected “.
“We want to note particularly that instead of arresting APC members who are attacking PDP members on daily basis, the said statewide is targeting the victims instead of the culprits. PDP members are the victims of APC violence. Now PDP members are the ones being arrested.”
“Five of our members were killed at Ilesa shortly after the visit of the state governor. At Ila Orangun, four members of PDP were killed by rampaging APC thugs. At Irewole, four of our members were gunned down by an APC squad. Across the state, APC militants have been harassing and maiming PDP members.”
“Unfortunately, the Police Commissioner has not been professional in the discharge of his duties. All petitions from PDP on violent attacks on our members are not attended to. We have come to the conclusion that the state election Commissioner is biased and partisan. ”
“We call for his redeployment with immediate effect. It is thus sad that, instead of attending to the petitions of the victims, the ongoing operation is targeting the victims, the PDP. All these are ploys to disrupt the peace of Osun State ahead of the rescheduled house of assembly election slated for next Saturday.”
“A situation where APC chieftains became the mouthpiece of the Nigerian police, analysing who and who to arrest and for crimes that best suit their whims, reinforces our fears that security institutions have been compromised in the state. ”
“Our great party uses this opportunity to call on President Mohammadu Buhari as father and chief security officer of the nation to beam his searchlight on the nefarious plans of the Apc to disrupt the peace of the state using the police ahead of the coming election. Unjust arrest or detaining leaders of our party in the impossible guise of plotting against the people of the state will surely bear unpalatable consequences.”
“Election should not be war for those who are in good stead in deeds and acceptability to the people, who are constitutionally empowered to choose their representatives at all levels of government. Again, no democracy will thrive under a forced or fraudulent process, which was the bane of the immediate past administration in the state. ”
“The IGP should rather conduct proper investigation of APC political warmongers, whose only route to self-survival is violence and bloodshed. It is no-brainer that all recent cases of political attacks in parts of the state were masterminded by Apc desperados, who are battling hard to escape punishment for their past sins of mismanaging the state. ”
“Both the election and substantive commissioners of police in Osun State are also called upon to be professional in their conducts and resist all entreaties to intimidate the people of the state as doing so will be akin to stamping on the tail of a ‘gentle cobra’. ”
“Let us make it clear that Osun people cannot be intimidated. Those nursing perilous thoughts of causing mayhem to inflict psychological trauma on the people should perish the thought or live to nurse their defeat because Osun cannot be cowed.”
“While we await the drama of the security operatives disguised as special forces, we enjoing the good people of Osun State to remain calm, go about their lawful businesses but should be vigilant and resolute on their resolve to detach themselves from harrowing experiences of the past. ”
*If they could not defeat the state since July 16 2022 governorship election till they were overwhelmed in the last National Assembly election, they certainly will be defeated again, more devastatingly”, he stressed.
However, the APC in a statement by its Acting Chairman in Osun State, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, issued by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi, in Osogbo, the Osun State capital today, said that it was stranger than fiction that the PDP could descend so low to make such a sweeping, unfounded and unsubstantiated allegation against Oyetola and Omisore.
The party noted that the immediate-past governor of the state and a former distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Omisore and the APC in Osun are ardent believers in the rule of law and as such would follow it to the latter.
If Adeleke and the caretaker chairman of the state PDP have no skeleton in their cupboards, there would not be any reason for them to make an issue with the police wherever and whenever they choose to carry out their statutory duties of effective policing.
It is apposite to state that Mr Oyetola and Senator Omisore, both leaders of our party are peace-loving just like the other leaders and members of our party in Osun State in particular and the nation in general.
It is worth recalling that for twelve years that our party, the APC, was in power in Osun State, there was no record of incidents of political killings, whereas no fewer than 30 members of our party have been sent to the great beyond by the killer squad recruited and maintained by the Governor Ademola Adeleke administration within the 100 days of his administration.
Governor Adeleke and the leadership of his party, the PDP, cannot pretend not to know that the whole state was militarized by their heavily armed political thugs who were attacking the members of the opposition with guns, cutlasses, knives, cudgels, acid and juju during the last presidential and national assembly elections.
The fact that there has never been a record of where and when Governor Adeleke or the PDP caretaker chairman condemned the perennial attack and killings of our members and supporters as the Chief Security Officer of the state is an unexpressed admission that the crude approach to politics has their blessing and approval.
It is worthwhile to remind Governor Adeleke and his co-travellers that his administration operates and maintains a ruthless Joint Task Force(JTF) under the command of his highly controversial Chief Security Officer (CSO), CSP Adekunle Omoyele, who was accused of killing three members of the same family in Ede, the hometown of the Adelekes, shortly after the July 16, 2022 governorship election in the state.
It is strange that the PDP and Adeleke can be complaining about the shadow of policemen if truly their administration is not operating a nest of killers as it’s the killers who are afraid of the sight of a law enforcement agent. It is not possible to beat a child and such a child is denied an opportunity to cry.
We have it against Adeleke and his reactionary political party that they have never denied the fact that they were responsible for the criminal killings of innocent members of our party in various towns and villages in the state.
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