The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has cautioned the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to stop judging the APC by its own standard.
This is just as the opposition party is accusing the ruling party PDP and Governor Ademola Adeleke of being grossly guilty of needlessly heating up the polity in the state through the copious infractions that the PDP hoodlums have been perpetrating on the members of the APC, since November last year.
It would be recalled that the Osun State chapter of the PDP, today, in a statement signed by the caretaker committee chairman of the party, Dr Akindele Adekunle, accused the former Governor Adegboyega Oyetola and the National Secretary of the APC, Otunba Iyiola Omisore, of having perfected a plan with the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Usman Alkali Baba, to arrest some of the leading lights in their party over some criminal matters traceable to the PDP’s stakeholders and subsequently turning the state into a police state.
But 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 expired state 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 the innocent members of our party in various towns and villages in the state.
Let me restate here that the PDP hoodlums have been denying us a level play ground before and during the last elections because their masterminds knew quite well that we are more than them and politics is a game of numbers.
Suffice to state that the PDP can never outshine the APC in Osun State in a fair, credible and free election.
It would be recalled that on the day of the last elections in what appeared like a war situation in some parts of Osun State, political hoodlums loyal to the ruling PDP in the state, led by one notorious miscreant, Olalekan Ajagungbade popularly called ‘Emir’ unleashed mayhem on the people of the state, particularly the APC members, who came out to exercise their civic duty.
The hoodlums, who were large in number, also attacked the country home of Oyetola, in Iragbiji where several polling units were raided as already thumb-printed ballot boxes were carted away by the miscreants.
The political hoodlums armed with guns, cutlasses, axes and other dangerous weapons ransacked the strong holds of the opposition APC across the state.
The hoodlums who got to Idi-Ogungun polling unit in Iragbiji at 3:04pm when the sorting and counting of votes were ongoing, were seen shooting sporadically into the air to scare the electorate as officials of the INEC narrowly escaped death by the whiskers.
The attackers who arrived at the affected polling units in full force sent the entire community into panic as the atmosphere was rented with gunshots before they eventually snatched the ballot boxes during their onslaught at Idi Ogungun, an outskirt of Iragbiji, Boripe Local Government Council Area of the state and later moved to Eleesun and Odebudo, two of the popular communities in the council, all of which are APC strongholds.
The miscreants successfully ransacked the first polling unit after which they swiftly moved to the next polling unit which is a close by distance where other ballot boxes were carted away.
The most annoying thing is that these PDP political thugs enjoy the shield of the security officers who, oftentimes, guarded them whenever the hoodlums were perpetrating their attacks on the innocent people whose only sin before them was their membership of the APC.
We had, through press conferences in the recent past before the elections, complained copiously on how the PDP thugs had been attacking and hacking down our members in Ijesaland, Iwo, Ikire, Ikirun and Ile-Ife.
It is on record that our party had also complained in the past of the willingness and readiness of the PDP goons to inflict violence on the members of the opposition with a view to creating fear in our members and numerous supporters.
It is on record that apart from in Iragbiji, the Osun State Government-sponsored thugs chased away our members from their voting units in Ikirun, Ila-Orangun, Ile-Ife, Ikire, Ilesa, Okuku, Inisa, Ede, Ipetumodu, Edun-Abon etc.
*BELOW IS THE LIST OF SOME OF OUR MEMBERS WHO WERE KILLED FEW DAYS TO THE ELECTIONS:*
1). Adetunji Adeyeye from Ward 10, Atakumosa-East Local Government Council Area.
2). Oladele Moses a.k.a. ‘Alase’ from Ward 09, Atakumosa-East.
3). Oluwole Ade Basiru from Ward 09.
4). Omidokun Elijah from Ward 10.
5). Ebenezer Alaro from Ward 09, Ilesa-East.
6). Ibrahim Taiwo Adebiyi a.k.a. ‘Omo Alhaja’, from Ward 05, Etiooni.
7). Adex from Ward 09 , Atakumosa-East.
8). Three okada riders were shot dead at Iwara Junction while one person is still receiving treatment at an undisclosed hospital in Ilesa.
9) Samson Owoyokun, a former SSA to former Governor Oyetola escaped being killed in Ilesa-West while some members of our party were stabbed by the PDP thugs at Ward 7, Ilesa-East, the ward of the former Minister of Health, Prof. Issac Adewole, when Carlos Fadahunsi, the PDP notorious thug and his goons struck.
The state Assistant Secretary of the Osun State chapter of the APC, Comrade Adediran Adebayo Waheed, who was the APC Collation Agent for Olorunda Local Government Council Area of the state and Hon Tajudeen Hassan, escaped death by the whiskers when they were attacked by the PDP thugs at the INEC office around 1:00am on Saturday at the Olorunda Collation Centre.
*Below are some of the PDP political thugs who have been attacking, maiming and killing the opposition APC members:*
1) Olalekan Ajagungbade a.k.a. ‘Emir’ hails from Osogbo.
2). Sikiru Oyeniyi a.k.a. ‘Ado Igbona’ hails from Olorunda.
3). Solomon Adefioye Adedimeji a.k.a. ‘Solo Iwara’ hails from Atakumosa.
4). Wakeel Nurudeen a.k.a. ‘Alowonle’ hails from Osogbo.
5). Bode Olakayode a.k.a. ‘Bode Itaapa’ hails from Atakumosa.
6) Ibukun Fadipe a.k.a. ‘IBK’ hails from Ilesa.
7). Ibrahim Gbadamosi a.k.a. ‘Gbedu’ hails from Boripe.
8). Sanya Omirin hails from Ilesa.
9). Akogun Lere Oyewumi hails from Ikire.
10). Clement Akanni a.k.a. ‘Olorunwa’ hails from Ila-Orangun
11) Wakeel Dokky who hails from Ede.
12) Yemi Aleba who hails from Ede.
13) Kareem Oladeji Aflao who hails from Ede.
14) Taye Trouble who hails from Ede.
15) Baba Ibeji Thunder who hails from Ede.
16) Sekere Olota who hails from Ede.
17) Oriade OPC who hails from Ede.
It would be recalled that Sanya Omirin, the PDP House of Representatives’ candidate for Ijesa-South Federal Constituency; SPAIN from Ikirun; Akogun Lere Oyewumi, the senatorial candidate of the PDP for the Osun-West Senatorial District and the PDP House of Assembly candidate for Iwo State Constituency had in recorded audio/visual videos that have gone viral threatened to deal decisively with the opposition APC members before the elections which they truly did.
Senator Francis Adenigba Fadahunsi, the PDP candidate for the Osun-East Senatorial District of the state, is a political terror who has an indelible history of attack on the APC members.
Let me impress it on the leadership of the PDP in Osun State that it is primitive and criminal for their chairman and his co-travellers to be threatening uprising in the state if the anticipation of his party does not become a reality as there is no nexus between justice and sentiment. No matter what happens, the heavens will not fall.
I will enjoin the police and other security agencies in the state to be at alert with a view to nipping in the bud any contemplated untoward activities by the PDP elements in the state.
It will restore sanity and peace to the hitherto one of the most peaceful states in the country if the police can comb the nooks and crannies of the state in order to flush out the dangerous political hoodlums who have turned Osun State into a haven under the administration of Governor Adeleke.