2023: Anxiety in Oyo over return of political violence

From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan

Ahead of the 2023 governorship poll in Oyo State, unfolding events have shown that the era of political thuggery and hooliganism might return if all hands are not on deck to tackle the menace headlong.

The fear, as gathered, stemmed from the political violence that preceded the 1983, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 governorship polls in the state, with their attendant loss of lives and destruction of multimillion naira property. In the midst of this fear, Commissioner of Police in the state, Adebowale Williams, will on Monday November 28 host the 18 political parties and their candidates, as well as some elder statesmen at the Eleyele Police Headquarters in Ibadan, for signing of peace accord towards curbing unruly political tendencies before, during and after the general elections.

But in the past few weeks, the three adjudged leading political parties in the state – Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All Progressives Congress (APC) and Accord, have engaged in verbal war.

Oyo North senatorial candidate of the Accord Party, Shina Peller, raised the alarm that he escaped assassination from hoodlums on Sunday May 29, 2022 on his way from Ibadan to Oke-Ogun. He pointed fingers at the APC. But APC denied the allegation.

In the first week of October, 2022, the APC, led by its governorship candidate in the state, Senator Teslim Folarin, held a mega rally in Ibadan for the party’s presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. The party, however, raised the alarm that some thugs, allegedly loyal to PDP attacked participants. But the police in the state said the following day that the incident that led to the shooting of one person did not have anything to do with the rally. He was said to be a victim of armed robbery, and he survived the incident.

In the second week of November, the campaign train of the 2023 governorship candidate of Accord Party in the state, Adebayo Adelabu, a retired deputy governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), was violently attacked in Tede in Oke-Ogun zone of the pace setter state. Adelabu alleged that APC was behind the attack. But the publicity secretary of APC in the state, Olawale Sadare, denied involvement or culpability of the party in the reported violent attacks against Adelabu. Sometime ago, Folarin of APC raised the alarm that if anything bad should happen to him, Governor Seyi Makinde of the state and the Chairman of the Park Management System (PMS), Alhaji Mukaila Lamidi, fondly called Auxiliary, should be held responsible. He alleged that the duo have been after his life because of his political ambition to become governor in 2023.

But the PDP also fired back through its state publicity secretary, Akeem Olatunji, saying the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Alkali Baba Usman, should call Folarin to order before he turns the state into another field of political crisis. In the same vein, destruction of campaign billboards is one of the major issues that have been identified as a recipe for violence in the state.  As observed, billboards belonging to APC, Accord and PDP have been vandalised in the past few weeks across the stage.

Nemesis, however, caught up with a middle-aged man, said to be fond of destroying campaign billboards in Challenge area of Ibadan some weeks ago. He was electrocuted, while destroying one billboard.

But both APC and Accord, on many occasions, have accused the Chairman of the Disciplinary Committee of PMS, Auxiliary, and his foot soldiers as the ones destroying their billboards. On November 17, 2022, the Oyo State Police Command, dragged Auxiliary to court over his alleged involvement in the destruction of billboards of APC candidates in the state. But he pleaded not guilty. The court, however, granted him bail and adjourned the case to February 2, 2023 for hearing.

The Commissioner of Police, Adebowale Williams, also inaugurated a peace committee to ensure an exercise devoid violence. According to him, “So far, the command, based on available intelligence, is concerned about the extremities and desperation displayed by some political gladiators and their stooges in a bid to enforce needless territorialism and dominance.”