It may also be necessary to involve the security agents, especially the police in the exercise at the state level if the story of these three young men, Suleiman Ajeja, Adeoye Ajani and Adebimpe Suraju, all supporters of Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli, the deputy-governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in Oyo State is anything to go by.
Or, how does one explain the police battering of innocent supporters of a particular candidate while pasting the posters of their principal, on allegation that they were tearing another person’s posters? The three told newsmen after they were discharged from hospital that they were on Saturday night beaten blue black by policemen attached to Governor Abiola Ajimobi and whisked to the Oluyole residence of the governor.
They were accused of pasting Akala/Alli’s posters on those of the governor at the Iyalode, Efunsetan, Challenge Roundabout area of Ibadan around midnight. But the policemen at Oluyole Police Station, where they were taken after another beating at the governor’s residence, could not establish the allegation during a visit to the scene on Sunday morning. With bloodstains and wounds on their faces they recounted their ordeals. According to Ajeja, who claimed to be LP Secretary in Ibadan North Local Government area of the state, “We were pasting the posters of our boss, Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala and his deputy, Chief Sarafadeen Alli, around 12.30 a.m. when we saw three vehicles pass by. One of them in a convoy bore the official registration number of the state government. The other was a Hilux Toyota jeep and the third, a private car,Daily Independent reports.
“As they turned and came towards us, I wanted to explain to them what we were doing, but one of them just slapped me. They said we were tearing their Oga’s posters. We told them we were only pasting ours, but they started beating us with cutlasses. One of them hit me on the right eye with the butt of a gun and blood started gushing out. They later bundled us into the booth of the vehicle and drove us to Oluyole. There, we realised we were at Governor Ajimobi’s residence where some other policemen also joined them in beating us.
“Because I was bleeding profusely, they took us to the Oluyole Police Station. There, they wanted to just dump us at the station, promising to return there, but the police at the counter said there must be complainant and so one of them gave his name as Sulaiman Ibrahim. The police there were very compassionate. They said they would keep us till the daybreak for the security of our lives. Till we were released on bail to go and take medical treatment around 11 a.m, yesterday, we did not see the policemen from Governor Ajimobi’s house. The N50,000 that Hon. Nurudeen Akinyo gave me yesterday night for a programme we had the following day was taken away from me by the policemen that beat us,” he said.
A police officer at the Oluyole Police Station, who confirmed the incident, though on condition of anonymity, disclosed that the three suspects were brought to the station, but one was bleeding profusely. They were said to be pasting posters.”
Reacting to the development, the Director-General of the Akala/Alli Campaign Organisation, Dr. Kola Balogun; Coordinator of Team Akala, Niran Adeyoju, and a counsel, Olu Olajide, who secured the bail of the battered men, called on the people of Oyo State to “call Governor Ajimobi to order because no one has the monopoly of violence. He is touting prevalence of peace in Oyo, but it has been seen now that the peace is that of the graveyard. If the governor does not put a stop to this, he might himself be consumed in the fire.”
Balogun commended the police, saying; “The policemen at the station did wonderfully well because they took the complaints and took the guys back to the scene of the crime, where they found out that the guys had not committed any crime. They saw the starch, and the posters they were pasting. Because it was late, they brought them back to the station to keep them there for their own safety till the following morning when we went to the station, got the boys out and took them to a hospital, where they were treated.”
He described the development as surprising and disheartening.
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