Kwara State Government responsible for political violence, KMC alleges

…..Calls on FG to pay more attention

The leading Pro-Democracy group in Kwara State, Kwara Must Change (KMC) has accused the Kwara State government of being behind the political violence in the state, as it called on the Federal Government to pay more attention to the happenings in Kwara before the situation goes out of hand.

Kwara Must Change, in a statement by its state coordinator, Mr Yusuf Olatunji stated that, the increasing political violence in the state calls for concern, as it condemned all forms of state sponsored violence that has become reoccurring in the state.

According to Mr Yusuf, ‘’political violence in the state started immediately after the All Progressive Congress APC) won the By-election in Kwara South’’.

Mr Yusuf recalled that after the victory of Honourable Abdulraheem Ajulo Opin during the by election in Irepodun, Ekiti, Oke-Ero and Isin Federal constituency, violence was unleashed on the APC Governorship candidate, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq and his entourage while on their way back to Ilorin.

According to him, the failure of government to bring to book, those who carried out such dastardly act has encouraged other forms of violence against members of the general public.

Kwara Must Change also noted that, when the state government, without any justifiable reason, attempted to stop the opposition from using its legitimate slogan ‘’O TO GE’’, which literally mean, ‘’Enough is Enough’’, it started another round of political violence, which should not have been so.

Mr Yusuf explained that, ‘’the government went as far claiming that the Emir of Ilorin wrote a petition against the slogan, a claim promptly disputed by the revered emir and till this day, Kwara State government has not relented on its efforts to unduly exploit its power over law abiding citizens, who are members of the opposition party ’’.

Additionally, ‘’Having failed to stop the use of the ‘’otoge’’ slogan, political thugs allegedly loyal to the state government destroyed all opposition billboards across the state and those responsible for this are yet to be apprehended’

’’Even after the opposition erected new billboards, the new billboards were also burnt across the state, adding that all these predates the violent attacks that occurred today, in which some lives were reportedly lost’’, it said.

The group condemned all these attacks and called on the federal government to quickly pay attention to what is happening in Kwara State before the situation goes out of hand.

END