By Gbenga Ojikutu
The alleged sporadic shootings by hired thugs and some commercial vehicles’ drivers that caused residents to scamper to safety during the inauguration of the campaign of the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Mr Biodun Oyebanji, in Ado-Ekiti on Tuesday has been described as barbaric, callous and primitive by Asiwaju Segun Oni, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) governorship candidate.
In a press statement issued in the Ekiti State capital on Wednesday by Mr Jackson Adebayo, the Director of Media and Publicity of the Segun Oni Campaign Organisation (SOCO) and made available to Ekiti Standard, Oni said what he had said that the APC was planning to hire thugs, recruit fake police and soldiers among the drivers within and outside the state and buy uniform for them to destabilise the state before the election day and intimidate the voters on the day of the election had now been confirmed by the party’s “show of shame” during their inauguration.
Adebayo said the display by the drivers’ union further justified the allegation that Governor Kayode Fayemi and the APC were recruiting drivers as thugs and fake military personnel to perpetrate evil to cause mayhem and chaos on election day, noting that the residents were in panic mood as drivers’ union members were in white mini buses known as AKOTO, filled to brim, as they were chanting BAO and shooting sporadically.
Adebayo, therefore, called on the security agencies to properly secure lives and property before, during and after the election, stressing that the display by the APC had shown that its campaign would be marred by violence.
Adebayo described the manifesto of Oyebanji as fake, advising Ekiti people not to be swayed by fake promises, as “Oyebanji, who has been a political boy of Niyi Adebayo and later Fayemi, cannot be different.”
He said “a vote for BAO is vote for continuity of repression and subjugation of workers, fake promises, insecurity, owing of salaries and pension allowances and economic retardation of Ekiti. It is a continuity of oppressive Fayemi and Fayose dynasties in Ekiti.”
He enjoined the people to continue in their support for Oni and vote for him to become their next governor.
