Osun PDP charges police with oppression and threatens a demonstration

The Peoples Democratic Party leadership in Osun State has protested the police’s widespread detention of its leaders, stating that the action was taken to rig the State Assembly elections scheduled for next Saturday.

In a statement obtained in Osogbo on Sunday, the party’s acting state chairman, Dr. Akindele Adekunle, said PDP members would occupy police stations throughout the state in peaceful protest unless Mr. Usman Baba Alkali, the inspector general of police, stopped the ongoing detention of the party’s leaders.

The party said that the IGP Alkali had a responsibility to uphold the law impartially and that the police chief shouldn’t follow orders from APC leaders over who to detain or arrest.

The statement partly read, “Our leaders are being arrested in a bid to rig Saturday’s election. We will resist any ploy to manipulate the polls. Osun people voted overwhelmingly for PDP in the last polls. They are ready to freely exercise their voting rights again. Arresting our leaders on Kangaroo charges is an attack on democracy and our fundamental human rights.

“We call on the Inspector General of Police to stop serving the evil interest of the APC. The police boss has a sacred duty to be an impartial enforcer of the law, not an agent of one political party against the other. It is unacceptable for the IGP to take directives on who to arrest or detain from APC chieftains. This is a democracy, not a military dictatorship.

“We will not resort to self-help. We are law-abiding citizens and a ruling party in Osun state. But if this harassment of our members continues, we will mobilize and storm all police posts in Osun state in a peaceful protest. Let the IGP arrest all Osun PDP members.”

When reached, Mr. Kola Olabisi, the Osun APC spokesperson, said he would respond to the statement, but as of the time this story was filed, he had not yet done so.

Nevertheless, the spokeswoman for the Osun Police Command, Yemisi Opalola, denied that any particular group’s members had been arbitrarily detained and insisted that the command was only after criminals.

For law-abiding citizens to live in peace, Opalola said police will continue to make arrests, and he urged everyone’s assistance to guarantee effective enforcement throughout the state.

“We are police, not politicians. We are after criminals and if we arrest anybody, the person must have done something which is against the law.

“We have no affiliation with any political party.

“Criminals will belong to one group or the other. We don’t know and we are not concerned with that. What we are concerned with is the security of lives and property. We are law enforcers and we will arrest anyone who disturbed public peace. There is no need to give a crime colouration,” Opalola concluded.