Oyo State governor, Senator Abiola Aji has warned that as the Chief Security Officer of the state, he would not stand by and allow anyone, no matter his status, to jeopardise the hard-earned peace of the last three and a half years in the state. He made this known in a release issued by his Special Adviser on Media, Dr Festus Adedayo. According to the governor, the trend of orchestrated violence in the state in the last few days pointed to a desperation by some politicians to destroy the flagship of the government’s performance, which were peace and security.
The governor said the Friday violence in the state, where a policeman was shot and some other people wounded in Oke Ado area of Ibadan while his meet-the-people-tour train was still in Ido Local Government Area of the state, was a calculated attempt to “pollute the river of peace” in the state and give the impression that the Ajimobi-led government was not different from its predecessors’, whose governments were known to encourage thuggery, bloodletting and gangsterism.
He also said that the violence which occurred at the Popoyemoja area of the state capital two days after, where some thugs unleashed mayhem on residents of the area, could not be divorced from the bitter politics of the past and attempt to destroy the image of the government.
“Our people are not fools. We have received high-profile information that this sporadic violence was not an accident. Aware that peace is our government’s flagship in a state, which under previous governments was like Syria and Afghanistan, opposition warlords have apparently grouped to return our state to its disgraceful past, all in the name of scoring cheap in-road into the hearts of the people ahead the 2015 elections,” the governor said.
While threatening to invoke the full wrath of the law on culprits of the violence, the governor said he would be failing in his responsibility if he did not make scapegoats of those trying to make mincemeat of his peaceful pedigree.
“Let me warn perpetrators of violence and their masterminds that an end has come to their foray in Oyo. No matter how highly placed they may be, we will smoke them out of our state,” he vowed.
Meanwhile, former Oyo State governor, Senator Rashidi Ladoja, on Monday, visited the state Police Commissioner, Mr Kola Sodipo, over Sunday’s violence by political thugs in some parts of Ibadan, expressing concern over destruction of properties, including his father’s house at “Born photo area” of the city.
Senator Ladoja, after the meeting with the police commissioner, also paid a visit to the affected areas at Iyana Asuni, Ile-eja, and Born photo, where he sympathised with some of the victims.
Senator Ladoja, in an interview shortly after the inspection, disclosed that from what the police commissioner told him, the incident would not repeat itself.
The Accord Party leader absolved members of his party from the violence, putting the blame instead on the doorsteps of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government in the state.
“I am saddened with what I have seen. The police Commissioner has, however, assured me that the incident is one off thing and would not repeat itself again.
“I even learnt the violence was caused as a result of rivalry among political aspirants. You see the irony of it all is that this is happening in a regime which prides itself as being peace promoting,” he said.
In a related development, about 16 suspects arrested after last Friday’s killing of a police inspector in Ibadan, Oyo State, were, on Monday, arraigned in a chief magistrates’ Court One, Iyaganku, Ibadan, on a two-count charge of conspiracy and conduct likely to cause the breach of peace.
The 16 accused persons were picked at the scene of the incident at Oke-Ado area, where the supporters of the APC converged at the vocational centre established by the governor of Oyo State, Senator Ajimobi.
After the reading of the charges and the plea for by the counsel for the accused, Chief Magistrate, Mrs Fatimah Badrudeen, granted each of the accused a bail in the sum of N20,000 or a surety in like sum.
Nigerian Tribune, however, learnt that the police were still after some principal suspects (names withheld), who were said to be directly involved in the Friday mayhem.
The command’s spokesperson debunked the claim that lives were lost during the incident, stating, however, that houses, shops, vehicles and motorcycles were torched and vandalised by suspected political thugs on alleged reprisal attack following Friday’s episode at Oke-Ado, Ibadan.