Political violence: CSOs condemn calls on Buhari, IG to intervene in Ogun

Political violence: CSOs condemn calls on Buhari, IG to intervene in Ogun

Wednesday, January 16, 2019 7:36 pm


The Coalition during their press conference in Abeokuta

Adejoke Adeleye, Abeokuta
A coalition of Ogun State based civil society organizations, pro-democracy and human rights organizations has warned politicians not to militarise the state by asking President Mohammadu Buhari and the Inspector General of Police for security intervention ahead of February 16 and March 2, 2019 election.
The coalition which consist of over sixty civil society organisations led by Comrade Folarin Olayinka said this at a press conference at Nigerian Union of Journalists secretariat, Abeokuta on Wednesday while reacting to a recent public letter  titled, “Letter to President Buhari:Save our Souls in Ogun State.”
The Coalition described the writers of the letter as political jobbers who are ill-informed, but claiming to be civil right crusaders.
“We are here to straighten records and condemn the barbaric and untrue publication by some political jobbers in a letter titled ‘Letter to the President Buhari : Save our souls in Ogun state’
“The publication has revealed the writers were ill-informed acclaimed civil rights crusaders who suspiciously have traded truth and fairness for whatever cost. They incontrovertible chose to be economical with realities in Ogun State,especially the state security.
“We unanimously condemned the false alarms and claims of rising insecurity in Ogun state. It is far from the truth with spurious aim of condemning the uncompromising, reliable and responsive efforts of the state police command.
“We have done some findings and we have discovered that the political violence that have happened so far happened as a result of the mismanagement by parties of of their campaign process and violence from  extortionists.
” For the petition written to  the Presidency, we want to state clearly that our state still remain safe as ever before and all that has been written was written by unidentified elements sponsored by some unidentified individuals.
‘It will be recalled that the Ogun state Police command in one of it’s efforts at preparing toward a peaceful conduct of 2019 elections organised a stakeholders and peace accord for all critical stakeholders unions amongst others.
“Each political party signed the peace accord document which was read to all stakeholders, the command used different forum to read the riot act and orientate the public on peaceful prior, during and post elections. What else could have been expected of the Nigerian police force other than measures that guarantees sustainable peace and maintainance of laws and order in Ogun state.
“Ogun state over the yeas have been rated as the most peaceful state and the first state with the ease of doing business in Nigeria. We therefore imaging why this I’ll informed writers and suspected political machineries and strange characters decided to demarket Ogun state.
“We would like to warn political actor and politicians to desist from conduct capable of causing voters apathy, breach of public peace, disunity, disaffection and open door for rigging under the disguise of insecurity.
“Ogun state has remained a peaceful state and should not be militarised.
“The President of the Federal republic of Nigeria, Inspector general of police , DG of SSS, national security adviser among others should discard the call for an unnecessary security intervention in Ogun state,” he added

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