Olushola Omogbehin
As members of All Progressive Congress in Ondo State get set for the Wednesday ward congress across the state, armed political thugs have scattered the stakeholders meeting and seriously injured the party chairman, Engineer Ade Adetimehin and other leaders of the party .
According to reports, the meeting which was held at the party’s Secretariat in Akure, the state capital, got disrupted when the said sponsored thugs arrived the venue of the meeting with dangerous weapons.
Vanguard reports that the state party chairman was dragged by the thugs while the meeting was going on with other leaders including Ademola ljabiyi, Saka Yusuf, Otito Atikase, Muyiwa Asagunla, Akin Sowore, Rasheed Badmus ,Yetunde Adeyanju ,Sola Ajisafe, Dr Koka Ademujimi and Chief Bode Sunmonu.
The party’s Chairman while speaking to newsmen expressed shock over the incident.
”l was the target of the attack, they were all shouting my name as they entered the hall, they beat me blue black before dragging me on the floor.
He said his two handsets, wristwatch and the sum of N210,000 were forcibly removed from his pocket by the political thugs.
Adetimehin said “Around this time yesterday, the Congress committee came all the way from Abuja. They met us at the party secretariat, about 13 of them. We had a meeting with them, those of us in attendance, my humble self, Organising Secretary, the Special Adviser to Mr. Governor on political and legislative matters.
“We were in the secretariat for close to two hours, where the Chairman of the committee told us to hold a stakeholder today, and that I should call a stakeholder today. We both agreed to hold the meeting by 12 noon. Then we sent the message out to all of the party stakeholders to attend.
“I called the Chairman of the committee to send out a text for the meeting and we agreed to meet by 12.30pm. By 12 noon, the hall was filled to capacity. l called the state governor, Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa to inform him about the development and we both agreed.
“I told him that after the meeting, myself and the committee would visit him to meet him, because it is their duty to tell us the modality for the Congress and how we are going to do the Congress. After speaking with him, I told him that I heard from the grapevine that some people are mobilising to the secretariat to destroy the meeting.
“He said no that such a thing cannot happen under his watch, that he will take charge and will not allow violence in the state and promised to caution anybody behind it. But to my surprise, some 30 minutes later, the place was invaded by thugs, with cutlasses, guns. They beat hell out of all leaders and members, except those who are for them.
“They dragged me on the floor, I didn’t bother, they took away my two phones from my pocket, with my wristwatch. All they are saying is that they will kill and they were shooting periodically, many of our members were in the hospital for treatment.
“When they knew they could not harm me, they went for my driver and beat him seriously. A lot of people were wounded.The demand they were making when they came was that they don’t want Congress.”
The former Commissioner for Community Development and Cooperative Services, in the state, Mrs. Yetunde Adeyanju, believed that the state governor, Aiyedatiwa is behind the attack.
”I was at the venue of the meeting. I saw everything that happened. I went there to attend the meeting. But to our surprise, thugs came and they were shouting, we are from Aiyedatiwa.
“They specifically mentioned Aiyedatiwa. That Aiyedatiwa sent them and they will not allow any Congress to take place in the state. They stated that the governor is in charge.
“The governor is the leader of the state and the governor is in charge and nobody can query the authority of the governor, and anybody that wants to talk about Congress in Ondo State will be assassinated. So you can see that our lives are in danger. It has never been this bad in the history of Ondo State.
“The last time we saw this nonsense was far back in 2007, Ondo State has grown beyond this, the last time we saw this was PDP versus Labour Party.and we’ve grown beyond that.
”They should please help us appeal to the governor, that what the governor is trying to do in Ondo State It’s not good, it’s not in the interest of Ondo State. Stakeholders in this state should cry out loud.
“The thugs keep shouting that Aiyedatiwa is the leader of the party in the state and nobody is disputing that but they should allow the Congress to hold peacefully.
”I want to appeal to the security people, journalists, please help us cry out loud to the national leadership of the party.We don’t want violence again in Ondo state.
Expressing his surpeise, Otito Atikase, the state representative on the board of Niger Delta Development Commission, (NDDC), said the governor has not at any point in time informed the leadership of the party of his desire not to hold congress.
“As far as I’m concerned, by virtue of the content of his body language, he’s not comfortable with the way things are going in the state APC. Because if he doesn’t believe that there shouldn’t be Congress, this kind of situation wouldn’t have raised its ugly head.
“I was the first casualty. Yes, because when the guys were coming in, I was the first person to encounter and confronted them at the staircase. In fact, they wanted to throw me down from the top floor, but I was able to struggle myself out of them and they warned me that my money has been paid, that they will come for me.
“I put this on social media, that Mr. Governor has paid for my money. So if anything happens to me in Ondo State, Mr. Governor should be held responsible, because I have never seen this kind of politics in the politics of Ondo State. It’s a dangerous dimension.
“They told us that the governor has ordered that no Congress should take place and people started running for safety. We have so many of our people in the hospital now. we should have nothing less than seven people on admissions. They dragged the State chairman on the floor, seized his driver and he was beaten to coma.
Dissociating the state government from the attack, the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Hon. Idowu Ajanaku, said the claims that thugs were deployed to stop the meeting were mere attempt to tarnish the image of Governor Aiyedatiwa.
He therefore said the governor was neither aware of nor connected to the said meeting and could not have sponsored any act of thuggery.
He said Governor Aiyedatiwa’s leadership style that of inclusiveness and democratic values, with zero tolerance for violence or political intimidation.
The police command, which has since rose to calm the situation by deploying its operatives to the scene said efforts are ongoing to restore calmness to the area.
However, Police spokesperson in the state DSP Jimoh Abayomi said one person who sustained injury has been taken to the nearest hospital for medical treatment.
