27th March, 2011
The Ondo State chapter of the Labour Party, LP, on Sunday, raised an alarm over plans by the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to use military personnel and the police to change the will of the people in this weekend’s election.
This, it alleged, was in furtherance to their desperate bid to capture the state at all costs and a continuation of their 2007 election rigging game.
Specifically, the LP fingered the Defence Minister, Mr. Tokunbo Kayode, Senator Gbenga Ogunniya and Dr Olusegun Agagu, the former governor of the state as well as businessman, Jimoh Ibrahim, as the brain behind the dastardly act which it noted are already being carried out.
Both Ogunnjiya and Agagu are vying for the Senatorial seats of the PDP in Ondo Central and Southern districts of the state respectively.
In a press release in Akure on Sunday, the LP Publicity Secretary in the state, Mr. Femi Okunjemiruwa while alerting the whole world of the desperate attempts by the PDP to win the state at all costs and visit violence on the people, disclosed that the minister had already deployed over 20 soldiers to the services of Agagu in the Southern Senatorial District to help him facilitate his election bid aside from giving him two gun boats manned by naval officers which he (Agagu)has been using to campaign and terrorise people in the riverine areas of the state, specifically in Ilaje and Ese-Odo local government councils.
According to him, in the Central District where Ogunniya is contesting, he (Ogunniya) has made arrangements to use the police. He is using his position as the immediate past Chairman of Senate Committee on Police Affairs like he did during the re-run elections in Oka Akoko and Ilaje local government areas last year when he brought in over 100 armed policemen into the state from Abuja.
His words: “At a meeting held in the residence of the State Chairman of the PDP, Dr Tayo Dairo in Oke Ijebu area of Akure two Saturdays ago, the minister vowed to use all resources at his disposal to deliver the state to PDP and promised to assist Agagu with soldiers. Twenty soldiers were subsequently released to Agagu after the meeting aside from the initial 5 soldiers allocated to him from the Army barracks, Okitipupa. These military personnel who he now goes about with during his campaign aside from his thugs, are presently being quartered at the hotel owned by Chief Olusola Oke, the PDP national Legal Adviser in Igbokoda, headquarters of Ilaje local government.
“If we may ask, why must Agagu be going about with military personnel and police in his campaign train? Isn’t this an abuse of power and a violation of the laws of the land aside from giving him an undue influence over his fellow contestants? And we all remember what this same Agagu did in this same area in 2007 when he rigged election with the police and soldiers who he used to arrest our people indiscriminately on trump up charges in his desperation to win at all costs and placed them in jail inside the Okitipupa Army Barracks. This is another re-enactment of the 2007 elections in the making as plans are now on to arrest our people any moment from now, place them under lock and key on trump up charges until after the election in a bid to cow our supporters.
“Indeed, Mr Jiomoh Ibrahim, in continuation of their evil plot, is about now using the kidnap of his mother to hound LP supporters and leaders in Okitipupa, specifically in Igbotako, his hometown into detention by writing a spurious petition to the Inspector General of Police who will in turn send policemen from Abuja to be used to arrest our leaders in the area, whisk them to Abuja and detain them until after the election.”
He also said: “These are some of their plans as they know that having not provided good leadership in their six years of inglorious administration in Ondo State, the people of the state have rejected them and they can never win in a free and fair election.
“So, the only option left for them is to rig this election. As we had shouted out in 2007, we are alerting the whole world to the fact that in Ondo State, PDP is the aggressor, the author of violence and the perpetrator of do-or-die politics and they should be blamed for any infringements of the laws governing election in the state.
“But we are using this medium to appeal to the people not to allow their votes to be stolen, the principle of one man, one vote must be the order of the day; we must say an emphatic no to these roving hawks who want to steal our mandate again; we must be vigilant and call their bluff. Never again will democracy at gun-point be the order of the day in our state; the best candidates must be allowed to represent us irrespective of the party they belong to. We must reject imposition by force.”
