KEMI OLAITAN May 4, 2013 No Comments »

Ibadan violence Ladoja, Ajimobi trade words

Oyo govt is intolerant of opposition – Ladoja

We know nothing about the violence – ACN

In the aftermath of the political violence that erupted in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, on Thursday, the Accord Party, AP, yesterday came hard on the state governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, accusing him of being behind the violence unleashed on its members.

Some hoodlums suspected to be members of rival political parties had allegedly stormed a ceremony organised by AP to welcome some decamping members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, to its fold. The hoodlums were said to have unleashed terror on the decampees and members of the AP waiting to receive them.

Accord Party’s National Leader, Senator Rasheed Ladoja, and its chairman in the state, Alhaji Bashir Lawal, in a joint press conference, accused Ajimobi of sponsoring the thugs of the PDP and ANC to wreak havoc at the occasion.

Lawal disclosed that the party secured the necessary permits from security agencies in the state to hold the rally adding that 11 vehicles including three of which belonged to his party were vandalised during the clash.

He also called on the national leadership of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, to call its Oyo State chairman to order before he destroys the image of the union.

Said he, “We all thought that we had passed the age of brigandage in which NURTW members are used against political opponents, but what happened on Thursday had proved this otherwise.

The party would then want to appeal to the national leadership of the NURTW to as a matter of urgency save Oyo State from people like Fele who on the altar of political patronage want to plunge the state into darkness again.”

Ladoja accused the state government of being intolerant of opposition in the state. He said, “It is quite unfortunate that the present government in the state is intolerant of opposition, whatever our criticism of the urban renewal programme was done in the interest of the people of the state.”

However, Ajimobi in a swift reaction vowed to bring perpetrators of the Thursday violence to justice, even as he said that his government is predicated on peace and tranquillity.

The governor’s reaction was contained in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media, Dr. Festus Adedayo. This is as the ACN, also in a statement by its state chairman, Chief Akin Oke, accused former Governor Ladoja of seeking ways to bring violence back to the state.

According to Adedayo, the governor would not hesitate to visit the full weight of the law on anyone who breaches the peace of the state. According to him, as the Chief Security Officer of the state, he would not stand by and allow his most intangible achievement in office to be compromised by anyone.

He said that he is in contact with the Commissioner of Police to ensure that whoever was involved in violence, no matter their political party affiliation or standing in society, was arrested and punished “Peace is this government’s greatest asset. But for peace, road dualisation in all the nooks and crannies of Oyo State and a major urban renewal never known to the state would never have been.

This is why we would not leave any stone unturned in ensuring that violent people never come back to our state,” he said. The ACN state chairman alleged that his party knew nothing of the Thursday incident.

He, however, alleged that the said violence was from Ladoja himself. Oke on Friday, said that the whole development was a ploy by Ladoja to reintroduce violence to the state claiming the former governor had failed woefully in his bid. “Ladoja should look further from us for the violence that was said to have been visited on his party on Thursday.

During the time of Alhaji Lam Adesina, Oyo State knew peace and tranquillity.

By the time Ladoja came into office, he fouled the whole place up. His intolerance for the other person jammed the intolerance of Adedibu and but for God, this state would have been swallowed up in a conflagration. It is that politics that he has sought to re-introduce by making the whole world think we are like him,” the ACN statement said.