PRESS STATEMENT: Osun APC Condemns Invasion Of Osogbo Muslim Praying Ground By Adeleke, PDP Thugs* .... Says 'It Was Executive Recklessness'

The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has condemned today's invasion of the Muslim Praying Ground at Okebale, Osogbo by Governor Ademola Adeleke and his retinue of political thugs who are loyal to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with some soldiers and policemen.

According to the state chairman of the APC, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued by the party's Director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi, in Osogbo today, the whole scenario which culminated into a rancorous scene orchestrated by Governor Adeleke and his political hoodlums amounted to executive lawlessness.

It was gathered that without prior notification by the advanced party and protocol unit of the Governor's Office,  Governor Adeleke's handlers badged into the Muslim Praying Ground and ordered a respected leader of Osogbo, Alhaji Tunde Badmus, the Asiwaju of Osogboland and Senator Ajibola Bashiru, whom Adeleke has been having a running battle with, to vacate where they were already seated and that it was the choice of the space for the governor.

It was an attempt to forcefully remove Alhaji Badmus and Senator Bashiru from their seats at the praying ground and subsequent executive order by Governor Adeleke who hails from Ede, to the police to effect the arrest of the duo prominent sons of Osogbo which degenerated into the confusion that engulfed the scene.

It was also gathered that the governor who left the scene before the beginning of the Eid-Eil-Kabir prayers session issued an order to close the gate of the entrance of the praying ground in order to effect the arrest of Alhaji Badmus and Bashiru.

The indigenes of Osogbo who saw no reason for the arrest resisted the development which resulted into the ensuing rancorous scene.

It was also gathered that Governor Adeleke did not even alight from his official vehicle throughout the duration of the crisis which makes nonsense of those who are reporting an assassination attempt on the governor.

Lawal condemned the needless heating up of the polity by Adeleke and his co-travellers, advising him to go and sort out himself with the aggrieved members of his party whom he has been having a running battle with of recent.

He went down the memory lane to recall how Governor Adeleke was attacked by some disenchanted members of the PDP in Ikirun sometime ago when he went to commission  the Osogbo-Ikirun road of which the immediate-past Governor Gboyega Oyetola had achieved its 75 percent completion.

It would also be recalled that within the last one week, so many aggrieved members of the PDP and their allies in the dissolved Mr Rauf Aregbeola-led The Osun Progressives (TOP), have been publishing copious stories and video recordings with which they have been lambasting Governor Adeleke and regretted having to have identified with his political camp.

The Osun State APC chairman registered his disdain for the use of the soldiers in the convoy of a governor, advising the new Army Chief of Staff to look into the anomaly of security architecture in Osun State and promptly redress the situation.

Lawal stated that his understanding of protocol is that if a governor is to visit a place of which a praying ground is included, it's the duty of the advanced party of the governor and his protocol unit to make a solid preparation with reference to the security of sitting arrangement.

The APC chairman observed that there was no reason why such lapses of the government protocols would not be experienced since the statutory security agents, the DSS, who were with Governor Adeleke before have not been brought back after there was an allegation that one of them was slapped by a female member of the governor's family.

"The way and manner that the conventional policemen attached to the governor who are performing the statutory role of the DSS officers dress, has exposed them as heavily deficient in their strange assignment.

"We, in the APC, won't tolerate the needless heating up of the polity and disturbance of public peace by someone who is supposed to be the state security officer of the state", Lawal stated.

e-SIGNED:

*Sooko TAJUDEEN LAWAL,                             Chairman,                                                       Osun State APC.*