The crisis over the control of local government secretariats in Osun State, yesterday, worsened as eight persons, including a local government chairman, were reportedly killed and scores injured as elected local government officials on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) resumed offices at the various council secretariats.
While the state government said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost five persons, the APC said three of its members were killed.
The PDP and APC have been laying claim to the control of the council areas with the APC claiming that the Appeal Court had reinstated the sacked elected council chairmen and councillors.
The Osun State government, however, countered that the election was nullified by a Federal High Court in Osogbo.
As early as 8 am, elected council officials mobilised to resume at their offices at Boripe, Ilesa-West, Obokun, Odo-Otin, Iwo, Ayedaade, Isokan, and Irewole LGAs among others.
However, in a move to stop the chairmen, thugs suspected to be loyal to the PDP in the affected areas stormed the offices and were shooting sporadically into the air.
In an attempt to resist them, another set of thugs suspected to be loyal to the APC countered the move, which resulted in casualties.
Addressing newsmen on behalf of the APC Chairman at the Ileri-Oluwa Campaign office in Osogbo, Jamiu Olawumi, said that the reinstated chairmen and councillors had successfully resumed offices in about 15 LGAs before suspected PDP thugs stormed the councils with guns.
As at 9:15 am, the council officials had successfully resumed offices in 15 council areas, including Ede-South, Ife-Central, Ife-North, Ife-East, Ilesa-East, Obokun, Odo-Otin, Osogbo, Boripe Irewole, Isokan, Ayedaade, Atakumosa-East LGAs.
Olawumi said: “But surprisingly, in line with the threat of Governor Ademola Adeleke, PDP thugs invaded the council secretariats and started shooting at our people. Remi Abass, chairman of Irewole was killed, a councillor was killed in Isokan, and one APC member at Ola-Oluwa LGA.
“We called on the governor to call his party members to order as we will not stop resuming at the secretariats in line with the court verdict.
“Even those that did not go to the secretariat were targeted for assassination. Engr. Remi Omowaye, Executive Director, Federal Housing Authority, escaped assassination by the whiskers from PDP thugs in Ilesa as his vehicle was shot severally and his office attacked in the town.”
However, the Commissioner for Protocol and Government Affairs in the state, Mr Soji Ajeigbe, claimed that two PDP members, Ege and Igara, were killed by gun-wielding thugs working for the APC.
Ajeigbe said: “Apart from those killed, six others were killed while they were attempting to take over the secretariat. We have deposited the bodies in the morgue while the injured are receiving treatment at the hospital.”
Reacting to the killings and invasion of council secretariats, Governor Adeleke, who took to his X handle (@AAdeleke_01), yesterday, directed security agencies to take charge of all local government secretariats just as he called for an end to the bloodshed.
Governor Adeleke wrote: “Following reports of of the failed illegal takeover bid of local government councils in Osun by the sacked APC Chairmen and councillors, I hereby direct all Osun residents including politicians across all political divides to stay away from the local government secretariats to protect public properties and avoid further bloodshed.
“This has become necessary, especially as the council secretariats are expected to be under lock and key, due to the withdrawal of service, announced by workers of the Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, across the state.
“I equally console families of victims of the APC illegal takeover bid and chaos unleashed across the state by the APC and their hired thugs. The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, lost five members with several others wounded. Two of those members are from Iragbiji, Boripe local government. Another two were killed at Ola Oluwa Local government. Another one was lost at Ikire. We must stop further bloodshed.
“I have directed security agencies to take charge of all local government secretariats and I hereby assure residents of Osun of their safety and protection of lives and properties.”
Also reacting to the crisis in Osun State, the national leadership of the PDP, yesterday, declared that the sacked Osun State Local Government Chairmen and Councillors cannot force their way back into office noting that a substantive judgment of the Appeal Court has since sealed their fate.
PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr Debo Ologunagba, in a statement, cautioned the affected local government political leaders to perish the thought of forcing themselves back into office as such will amount to a futile venture with dire consequences.
Ologunagba said: “The PDP also charges the All Progressives Congress, APC, to accept reality and end its resort to self-help, misrepresentations, vituperations, violence and killings with the aim to trigger crisis and destabilize the State, having realized that it has irredeemably lost.
“The PDP asserts that the fate of the ousted Local Government Chairmen and Councilors was sealed by the Judgment of the Court to Appeal which nullified the unconstitutional attempt by the former Governor Gboyega Oyetola to illegally plant them as Local Government officers in the guise of an election.
“Having been roundly rejected by the people of Osun State in the Saturday, July 16, 2022, governorship election, the then Governor Oyetola and the APC ought to have known that attempting to side-step the laws and manipulate the process to illegally foist APC members and apologists as Local Government Chairmen and Counselors was an exercise in futility which was bound to fail ultimately.
“The APC is the architect of its misfortune. It should have known that disregarding and refusing to comply with the provisions of the Constitution and the Osun State Local Government Election Laws concerning the requirement on notices, processes and procedures of conducting local government elections is destined to be fatal and irreparable.
“We counsel the Osun APC to stop playing to the gallery by trying to bring in the exulted office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria into disrepute by hopelessly dropping the President’s name at public spaces in their desperate but pathetic and unrealizable attempt to garner undeserved sympathy.
“The APC should note that our nation operates a federal system of government with clearly entrenched devolution of powers among the federating units as well as the various sub-national tiers of government.
“It should therefore desist from the fruitless attempt to drag President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Federal Government into the issue of local government election which, under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), is within the purview of the State and has no connection whatsoever with the Federal Government.”
“If the APC believes that it is truly popular in Osun State as it claims, it should rather get ready for election as already scheduled by the Osun State Independent Electoral Commission (OSSIEC) instead of holding onto an imaginary strand of straw and instigating violence and killings in the State.
“Our Party strongly condemns the violence and killing of some youths today by APC thugs and calls on the Inspector General of Police to hold APC leaders in Osun State responsible and bring them to book for this heinous crime.” – Vanguard.
