LP supporters attacked in Ibadan for pasting Alao-Akala’s posters

Some members of the Labour Party, including three aides of Sharafa Alli, the running mate of former Governor Adeb‎ayo Alao-Akala of Oyo State, were nearly killed on Saturday night at Challenge Roundabout area of the city by suspected security aides of Governor Abiola Ajimobi.

Ajimobi’s aides were said to be in a convoy when they noticed LP supporters pasting posters.

Police officers and other men in the convoy allegedly brought out cutlasses and other weapon with which they assaulted the three men who were caught unawares by the action of the governor’s aides.

The victims are Sulaimon Ajeja, Adeoye Ajani and‎ Adebimpe Suraju‎.

The injured men are said to be receiving medical treatment at a private hospital in Ibadan.

Narrating the incidence, Ajeja said it happened around 12.30am at Iyalode Efunsetan area of Challenge.

He said: “We were pasting posters of ‎Governor Akala and Barrister Sharafadeen Alli when two buses loaded with hoodlums stopped by to challenge us.

“Shortly after they left, three vehicles belonging to Ajimobi’s convoy pulled over and started assaulting us without any reason.

“Governor Ajimobi’s security aides were in a Jeep and immediately they sighted us, they parked and beat us blue and black as they brought machette ‎and guns with which they battered us and later took us to Oluyole house of the governor.

“While there, they asked women to urinate in our mouth as they forcibly asked us to open our mouths.

“Afterwards, they took us to Oluyole Police Station where we were kept behind bars but officers at the station were urbane set of people as they pitied us and directed that we be taken to hospital to get medical help and save our lives.”

The Director General of the Akala/Alli Campaign Organization, Dr. Kola Balogun, while briefing the press in Ibadan, condemned the attack and called on security agencies to take necessary action.

Balogun said: “This is attack coming again shortly after the governor has ordered that his boys should violently deal with anybody they considered as threat during the February election.

“Just a while ago, the hoodlums, believed to be loyalists of the All Progressives Congress went to Monatan Market to attack the people for hailing and receiving the former governor.”

Balogun called on Ajumobi to “call his boys to order” and at the same time stop making inflammatory statements “capable of disrupting the peace of the state the same way he did during the 2011 election”.