By KOLA OLABISI
An election no matter its magnitude which is supposed to become sports like has taken a different dimension in Osun State as the whole state has become unusually tension-soaked and militarized with political hoodlums since the inauguration of the embattled Governor Ademola Adeleke’s administration on November 27, 2022. Since then, the state has not known peace as several tenths of innocent souls of the All Progressives Congress APC extraction have been dispatched to the great beyond through the constant attacks by the PDP thugs who are believed to be acting on the directive of the executive governor of the state through his body language.
It would be recalled that the state governorship election tribunal that sat in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, had sacked the state Governor Adeleke with a stern order to the election umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, to instantly withdraw from Adeleke the certificate of return earlier given to Adeleke and give same to Alhaji Oyetola, the authentic winner of the July 16, 2022 governorship election. Pronto! The embattled Governor Adeleke who was floored by Oyetola dashed to the Court of Appeal to challenge his sack by the tribunal. It is by the grace of his appeal at the Court of Appeal that Adeleke has the latitude to continue to legally occupy the driver’s seat in the administration of the state.
Adeleke and his co-travellers became wild, wacky, cranky and rabidly obsessed with power against the opposition with ballistic precision since the tribunal pronounced his sack. The sacked governor has been doing everything under the sun to give a false impression about the popularity of his administration. Adeleke would be preaching peace while violence has been his major tool of running the administration of the state. The embattled governor identified some of the super strongholds of the APC and evolved maximum force readily supplied by the special squad of his administration in active connivance with hired statutory security officers and the pliable staff of the INEC, to win elections through hook and crook means.
The state had never had it so bad in the area of security under Governor Adeleke as hues and cries by the opposition APC members have been accompanying all the conducted successive elections in the state. Apart from dollarising all the elections, Adeleke enlisted the services of pliable security officers to hold down the APC members and supporters during every election which was more pronounced in the last house of assembly election where the PDP candidates fraudulently cleared twenty-five out of the twenty-six seats in the state house of assembly.
Anyone with hindsight would not find it difficult to decipher Adeleke’s motive for his desperation to win the elections which was to falsely justify the popularity of the PDP in the state. It was ludicrous, humouristic, strange and funny that in each of the elections held after the governorship election petition tribunal ordered his sack, Adeleke and the expired caretaker chairman of his party, one Dr Akindele Adekunle who hails from Ondo State, would not wait for the official declaration of the elections’ results before they churned out series of press statements to justify the phoney popularity of the PDP in the state in order to create a false impression that the established overvoting affirmation against Adeleke by the tribunal was a miscarriage of justice, forgetting or not having the knowledge that the law is the law in its venomous application devoid of emotions.
Ilesa-East, Ilesa-West, Atakumosa-East, Atakumosa-West, Boluwaduro, Ife-South, Ila, Oriade, Aiyedaade, Osogbo, Olorunda, Ife-East, Ife-Central, Boripe, Ifelodun, Irepodun, Irewole and Egbedore were parts of the local government council areas that became theatres of political persecution, oppression and annihilation as the members of the opposition were being run out of their homes by the PDP hoodlums who were heavily supported by the specially-recruited statutory security officers like the soldiers, the Air force officers and the police. The APC members and supporters who insisted in exercising their civic responsibility during the last Saturday’s election were either prevented from doing so or beaten to stupor by the recruited agents of death.
A member of the PDP who enjoys the listening ears of the Adelekes as a member of the PDP legal team caused the publication of a fake story depicting that the APC house of assembly candidate for Ife-South state constituency had killed a PDP member on the eve of the last election. It was based on this false publication which the leadership of the police later denied that was used by the PDP through some pliable police officers to run the leaders, members and supporters of the APC in Ife-South out of the town. Sequel to this, the PDP thugs had a field day on the election day forcefully dictating that the voters should cast their votes for the PDP candidate. It remains a poser if that was an election or a mere charade!
It is stranger than fiction that four days after the conduct of the facade called the house of assembly election, the members and supporters of the APC were still being persecuted, attacked and beaten up in Ilesa and Ife-South Local Government Council Areas of the state. There was a primitive video recording of a woman who was been giving a public beating by the PDP thugs under the supervision of some compromised police for having the effrontery not to vote for the PDP during the last Saturday’s election. The video of the woman being persecuted which has gone viral has given an unfavourable image to the Adeleke administration. The incident is worth investigating by the police authority and human rights organizations both locally, nationally and internationally.
There is another trending ugly and disturbing video recording of an open persecution of the APC members by the combined forces of the PDP hoodlums and the obviously drunk statutory security agents who openly held down their victims in a lying down position to be beaten openly by the PDP hoodlums or matcheted. It was worrisome that such a wicked approach to an election could take place in Ifewara, the hometown of the foremost and highly globally revered pentecostal Pastor Enuch Adejare Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God(RCCG). If such a wicked approach to an election which ideally should be sportsmanship-like is not condemned and checkmated, it may be imported to the other local government council areas in the state and by extension giving the nation a battered image among the comity of nations worldwide.
In order to scare the opposition APC members and supporters from voting in the last election, it was gathered that some of the identified political thugs of the PDP extraction led other notorious and daredevil thugs like, Yinka Fasetire a.k.a. ‘Kenge’ , Oladele Felix, Olumide Fisayo, Taiwo Amure Kekere, Kehinde Amure Kekere, Taiwo Amure Agba, Kehinde Amure Agba and Sunday Bugarly, started shooting sporadically at Wards 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of the Ilesa-East Local Government on the eve of the election till the morning of the election. A sizeable number of the APC members and supporters were beaten up or matcheted. It was gathered that an APC member, Dammy Olowu, was matcheted at Ward 8, former Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s ward, amidst heavily compromised Army and Police officers. It was also learnt that the INEC ad hoc officers openly connived with the PDP hoodlums by deducting overvoted ballot papers instead of outright cancellation stipulated in the 2022 Electoral Act as amended. Ilesa-East is the state constituency of the Right Honourable Timothy Owoeye, the current Speaker of the state House of Assembly.
The situation did also not fair better in both the Atakumosa-East and West Local Government Council Areas of the state during the period under review. It was gathered that as early as 6:00am on the day of the election, some of the political thugs led by Bode Itaapa, Solo Iwara, Ojo Jagaban, Eruku, Opeyemi Olalemi, Saka Igboya, Saheed Orimade, Adewale Babawale, started the shooting spree at Wards 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. It was gathered that the PDP stationed two thugs close to each of the polling units whose duty was to monitor those who were not ready to vote for the PDP and instantly got him or her off the queue with merciless beating and subsequent instruction for him to leave the scene instantly. There was a replica of such attacks across the local government council. It was gathered that the PDP thugs hijacked the election materials meant for Labosipo Unit and Number Unit in Ward 8 which presupposes that there was no election in those two units.
Investigation also showed that at Ogundele Unit in Ward 8 in the Atakumosa-East, the thumbprinted ballot papers there were not counted while the unused ballot papers are still lying fallow in the Ogundele Mosque. It was learnt that all the efforts to make the INEC ad hoc staff to come for the already thumbprinted ballot papers proved abortive as they were working in connivance with the PDP agents and the thugs. Two APC supporters called Taiwo and Kehinde were attacked by the PDP hoodlums in Ward 6 while it wasn’t the APC agents who signed the result sheets in that constituency.
Information also revealed that the PDP thugs fell trees across the road to prevent the APC members, supporters and security agents from accessing the whole of Ward 5 community. Throughout the period that the voting lasted, the whole communities of Eti-Oni, Ita-Apa and Temidire were held hostage by the rampaging PDP hoodlums. Information showed that the APC members were not allowed to vote by the PDP thugs and the pliable and overzealous security offices in the Ward 5 of Atakumosa-West Local Government Council Area of the state. The APC members who strived to vote at Epe, Ijana and Odo-oju were chased away by the thugs and the security officers. The thumbprinted ballot papers were torn into shreds by the daredevil PDP hoodlums led by Demola Awotimide, Busuyi Omidiji, Seun Fajemirokun, Deolu Omidiji, Yemi in Epe and Goro in Iyemogun.
The situation too did not fair better in Ilesa-West Local Government Council Area as harassment, intimidation and attack of the APC members and supporters by the PDP thugs ably assisted by pliable security officers were the hallmarks of the day in question. It was learnt that Seyi Ajakaiye, Basti, Bayo Landlord and IBK led the thugs who denied the APC a level play ground in the wobbled and fumbled charade tagged election.
The unsavoury story about the election was the same in all the affected local government council areas across the state which puts to a big question the basis for the displayed euphoria being flaunted by Adeleke and his co-travellers. One needs not be a soothsayer to observe and conclude that the house of assembly election just like the National Assembly and Presidential elections was a ruse which is not capable of withstanding the rigour of the election tribunal. It is advisable for Adeleke and the members of his newly-selected house of assembly member-designates, majority of who are Yahoo Yahoo practitioners, not to rejoice over the metaphorical dead sparrows erroneously tagged mandates, as they are mere temporary caretakers of the illegally-acquired mandates of the people.
KOLA OLABISI, the Osun State APC Director of Media and Information, writes in from Osogbo.