In order to ensure the crisis-free forthcoming governorship election in Osun State, the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has appealed to the Inspector-General of Police to declare the ancient town of Ede comprising the Ede-South and Ede-North Local Government Council Areas of the state as a political black spot requiring extra-security attention.
The brashness with which some of the youths of the Accord Party extraction were confronting the police during the cause of performing their lawful duty on Thursday(yesterday) in Ede, the native town of the incumbent Governor Ademola Adeleke, was not only worrisome but it was equally disheartening that such display of criminal lawlessness could be happening in any community in Nigeria in this century.
According to the video recording of the avoidable crisis in Ede yesterday which has gone viral, it was evident beyond reasonable doubt that the Accord Party youths were the aggressors who wilfully engaged in the organized crime of blocking the police from performing their lawful duties.
The purpose of the use of tear gas is to prevent a crisis from happening by repelling the actors from the scene. But it was shameful and strange that the political thugs of the Accord Party extraction could be so daring as to be resisting the police from performing their duties by throwing the canisters of the unexploded tear gas back at the police while attempts were even made to manhandle some of the police men on duty by the Accord Party hoodlums.
The Ede incident was an introduction of a dangerous dimension to politics and politicking and it should be treated with the seriousness and urgency it requires by the number one police officer in the country to serve as a deterrent to other political bandits in the state and beyond.
The police should painstakingly study the video recording of the incident and identify some of the actors if not all in the promotion of the disturbance of the public peace that led to the needless attacks of some of the members of our party and the police.
Someone out there should educate the riotous Accord Party members and their supporters in Ede that they are not above the law simply because their kinsman who was yet to condemn the incident as at the time of writing this report, is the incumbent governor of the state.
We are particularly happy for the police that they professionally managed the Accord Party orchestrated crisis in such a way that none of their men and officers were lost. It may however, not be tactful for the statutory law enforcement officers and their sister agencies to wait until such incidents are nipped in the bud in the politically volatile town of Ede.
One wondered the business of a set of a disgruntled elements obstructing the legally-reinstated APC local government council area chairman of the Ede-North Local Government Council Area, Honourable Adeyemi Elliot from performing his constitutional duty of the provision of infrastructural facilities to his constituency?
It was clear that the intent and overt act of the members of the Accord Party in the Ede episode which constituted treason felony in the eyes of the law formed a specific intention to destabilize the lawful government of the legally-recognised APC local government council executives led by Hon Elliot.
It is imperative for Governor Adeleke and his cohorts to come to terms with the fact that the Court of Appeal judgement of the 10th of February, 2025 which reinstated the APC local government council executives is still in force. The failure of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which has metamorphosed to the Accord Party in Osun State not to appeal the landmark judgement cannot be blamed on the APC.
It has been observed that the Governor Adeleke-led confused government’s incessant rushing to the media for interpretation of court judgements rather than compliance with such that has worked against the promotion of the rule of law in that the people who are not too educated are now mistaking the roles of one arm of government for another.
Ideally, it is the duty of the executive to enforce the law as interpreted by the judiciary but which has not been the case in the wobbling Adeleke-led government. A failure that can be traceable to one of the causes of the unfortunate incident in Ede yesterday.
We commend the peaceful conduct of the esteemed members and the ever-loyal supporters of our party for their civil and courteous posture in the face of glaring provocation throughout the Accord Party members’ orchestrated political melee in the ancient town of Ede yesterday.
e-SIGNED:
*Mogaji KOLA OLABISI,
Osun State APC Director of Media and Information.*
