The Kwara State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq-led government of a ‘collapse of leadership’ following the attack on women protesters at the Kwara State Government House, Ilorin.
In a statement on Monday, PDP condemned what it described as the brutal assault on women and children who had staged a peaceful protest over worsening insecurity in the Ifelodun Local Government Area of the state.
The protesters, mostly women from Oke Ode, Agbeku, Babanla, Adanla and neighbouring communities, had converged on the Government House to demand urgent government intervention in the release of their relatives allegedly kidnapped by bandits.
Videos of the protest, which circulated widely on social media and was obtained by The PUNCH, showed women lamenting in Yoruba that their husbands and family members had been held hostage for weeks, with ransom demands reportedly running into tens of millions of naira.
In the statement by the Kwara PDP Publicity Secretary, Olusegun Adewara, the PDP said the women came to the Government House as a ‘last resort’, after exhausting all options to secure the release of their loved ones.
The opposition party alleged that instead of being attended to, the protesters were attacked by hoodlums armed with canes and other weapons.
‘It is unacceptable that thugs reportedly acting on the orders of the Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq-led government descended on these peaceful protesters, beating, stripping and forcefully dispersing them in full public view’, the PDP said.
The party further accused officers of the Nigeria Police Force of watching the attack without intervening, describing the incident as a betrayal of public trust.
‘The decision of the police to stand by while innocent, grieving women and children were attacked is a gross violation of their constitutional duty to protect citizens’, the statement added.
The PDP called on the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, to identify and prosecute officers who allegedly allowed the attack to happen, as well as those who carried it out.
It also urged President Bola Tinubu and international human rights bodies to investigate what it described as the failure of the Kwara State Government to protect citizens from kidnapping and banditry.
Meanwhile, the Kwara State Government has distanced itself from the incident, describing the attack on the protesters as unacceptable.
Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq ordered the police to arrest those responsible for the assault, according to a statement on Monday by his Chief Press Secretary, Rafiu Ajakaye.
Ajakaye said the governor expressed outrage over the incident and reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to democratic principles.
‘Peaceful protest is a democratic right. The women are within their right to express their views. We distance ourselves from the incident as it does not represent our values as a government’, the statement read.
The police are yet to issue an official statement on arrests or investigations as of the time of filing this report.
