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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Osun State has accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of using the police to harass its members.
A statement signed on Monday by the PDP Caretaker Chairman in the state, Dr. Akindele Adekunle, said members of the party in Ijebu-Jesa and Eti Oni in Oriade and Atakumosa East Local Government Areas respectively were victims of APC’s harassment.
According to him, police being supervised by a member of the state cabinet, forcefully arrested PDP members and inflicted bodily harm on them, even without any warrant of arrest to justify such cause of action.
“Reports reaching the state secretariat of our great party, the PDP, indicate that a serving Commissioner in the government of Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola has been taking police operatives to private homes of PDP members in some local governments in the state to forcefully arrest them without any just cause.
“Specifically, police were reported to have invaded private homes of innocent members of our party members in Ijebu jesa and Eti Oni in Oriade and Atakumosa East Local Governments respectively, effecting the forceful arrest of our members and inflicting on them bodily harms, even without any warrant of arrest to justify such cause of action against harmless citizens.
“More worrisome is the fact that the police chose the dead of the night to invade citizens homes, embarking on sporadic gunshots, thereby subjecting the victims and their relatives to unnecessary psychological trauma,” the statement read in part.
Reacting, the Osun State chapter of APC in a statement signed by its Publicity Secretary, Wole Adunola, dismissed PDP’s claim, saying, “no state commissioner was working with the police to harass anyone.”
“The said commissioner is not working with the police neither is he an intelligence officer and will not put his life at risk going to thugs, wielding gun in their homes at night. So, they should tell the world how their thugs disrupted PVC distribution in Ilesa and suburbs,” Adunola said.