The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has decried the use of some pliable police officers by the administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke to hunt, intimidate, humiliate, arrest and dehumanize the major opposition party members in the state.
To this extent, many of the leading lights of the APC in the state have been invited and investigated by the police over pedestrian and frivolous reasons at the prompting of Governor Adeleke in order to cage the opposition.
According to Information gathered, a chieftain of the APC and respected socio-political commentator on social media platforms, Mr Akin Adeyi has been invited copiously within a couple of days by the Zone 11 Command of the Nigeria Police, with its headquarters in Osogbo, based on some frivolous petitions written by an appointed political functionary in the administration of Governor Adeleke.
Further investigation also revealed that strange telephone calls from police officers from both Zone 11 and the Osun State Police Command have been needlessly extended to some of the APC chieftains and members, inviting them over frivolous petitions by the governor and his cohorts.
Commenting on the development, the Osun State chairman of the APC, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi, today, held that it is strange that some police officers could allow themselves to be used cheaply by turning themselves to the willing tools of some disgruntled and desperate politicians.
Lawal appealed to the Inspector-General of Police to urgently prevail on Zone 11 and the State Command to resist being used by unfortunate political gladiators in the state whose popularity has taken a back seat.
He said: “We are not saying that the law should not be allowed to take its due cause but it becomes worrisome and questions the credibility of the police if the pliable ones among them should surrender themselves to the whims and caprices of the clueless and incompetent political leaders masquerading as those who are above the law of the land.
“When we were in the saddle, the PDP which was in the opposition, had an unfettered opportunity and latitude to perform the role of the opposition without any molestation by us.
“What could have been the offence of Adeyi in the court of the PDP gladiators in the state beyond skilfully orchestrated plans to silence him and give the patently irresponsible government occupying the hallowed Bola Ige House the latitude to inflict more hardship on the people of Osun.
“We are proud of Akin Adeyi and other active media gladiators in our party who in the last two years have exposed the iniquities, sleaze and malfeasance of the kindergarten government in the state.
“We will do anything to protect them against the harassment of the Babylonian charlatans in the corridors of power in the state.
“The earlier the embattled PDP-run government live to learn with the obvious fact that Adeyi’s choice of identifying with the APC is in the fulfilment of his inalienable fundamental human right of association with a political party of his choice, the better it would be for them.
“Opposition is a necessary and vital ingredient of any democratic government which has to be contended with by any government which is not graduating to dictatorship.
“Now that Adeyi has filed his court processes challenging the enforcement of his fundamental rights at the Federal High Court, sitting in Osogbo, the police have no other choice than to allow him to be.
“Another strange development was what could be the reason why the police should be on the prowl of the legal practitioner, Mr Seyi Oyagbile Esq, who filed the court processes on behalf of Adeyi yesterday as information has it that the police in their tens were combing Osogbo on Wednesday for the whereabouts of the lawyer.
“The long and short of our expectation as the leading opposition party in Osun State is that the police should refuse to be enlisted into political activities in the state for whatever reason in the overall interest of the corporate image of the statutory law enforcement agency”, Lawal stated.
