The Osun State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked security agencies to hold the All Progressives Congress (APC) responsible for any occurrence of violence before, during and after the August 9 governorship election in the state.
The Chairman of Osun PDP, Alhaji Gani Olaoluwa, said this in reaction to a statement credited to the APC regarding electoral violence in the state.
While addressing a press conference in Osogbo, the Director General of the Rauf Aregbesola Campaign Organisation, Senator Sola Adeyeye, reportedly accused PDP members in the state of killing a member of his party, Tolu Adeosun, in Ilesa and warned that APC members would retaliate the PDP attacks, when pushed to the wall.
In response, Olaoluwa said: “The police should hold the APC responsible for any bloodshed in Osun State before, during and after the August 9 governorship election.”
He said the PDP had always complained that the APC was bent on fomenting trouble and added that APC’s statement should not be treated as empty threat.
Meanwhile, the Iyiola Omisore Campaign Organisation has refuted reports that PDP members attacked and killed an APC member in Ilesa.
In a statement yesterday, the organisation said the death occurred when the PDP campaign train was attacked by thugs believed to be working for the APC.
“The campaign train of Peoples Democratic Party came under attack at Ilesa rally shortly after its gubernatorial candidate in the forthcoming August 9 election in Osun, Senator Iyiola Omisore, and other PDP party leaders paid a courtesy visit to Owa Adumila of Ijesaland, HRM Oba Gabriel Adekunle Aromolaran in his palace.
“The DSS officers attached to Senator Omisore were injured in the attack. Also, the vehicle conveying the party chairman, Alhaji Gani Olaoluwa, was badly smashed though both Omisore and other party Chiefs escaped unhurt. The attack was allegedly led by the “state boys,” a group of political thugs working for the APC. It was actually the APC supporters that instigated the violence,” the statement read in parts.
Omisore’s camp added that since the commencement of its rallies, it had not recorded any violence or breach of the peace before the Ilesa incident.
Also, the former National Deputy Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Shuaib Oyedokun, has condemned last Friday’s attack on Omisore and Olaoluwa and warned that the APC’s campaign body language has a potential of throwing the state into political cataclysm.
In a statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Olalere Fagbola, Oyedokun described President Goodluck Jonathan as a true dispenser of democratic dividends, and added that his PDP-led government has deliberately made the opposition viable. He also commended the President for tolerating “unprovoked criticism” from the opposition.
