Kidnapping: Oni wants to implicate us -AC

Femi Makinde, Ado-Ekiti


The Action Congress in Ekiti State on Wednesday alleged that the state government was plotting to implicate its members in the kidnapping of a traditional ruler who died in the hands of his captors recently.

[img]http://odili.net/news/source/2010/feb/11/punch/images/pix200809062544065[1].jpg[/img]
Chairman of the Action Congress in Ekiti State, Mr. Jide Awe



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Chairman of the AC, Chief Jide Awe, in a statement in Ado-Ekiti said the Peoples Democratic Party's administration in the state had concluded arrangements to frame his members in the kidnap of the late Atta of Aiyede Ekiti, Oba Adeleye Orisagbemi.

Orisagbemi, the acting Provost of the state-owned College of Education, Ikere, Dr. Gabriel Olowoyo and other indigenes of the state who were abducted on January 28 died in a ghastly accident in Kogi State while their abductors were fleeing with them.

But the Governor Segun Oni-led administration had said the AC was raising unnecessary alarm because of its past record of violence in the state.

"What these people (AC members) have demonstrated by rushing to the press with story like this is that they were afraid of their past deeds. When nemesis begin to catch up with evil doers, they blame imaginary enemies for their woes," Oni's Chief Press Secretary, Wale Ojo-Lanre said in response to the AC alarm.

Ojo-Lanre said the AC merely wanted to prevent the police and the other security agencies from carrying out their investigations by raising the alarm.

"We advise the AC leaders to allow the police and other security agencies from doing their job" the CPS said, adding that the Oni administration was too busy with the task of developing the state and has "no time to dignify these characters with a response."

Also, the Ekiti PDP, while reacting on Wednesday, said the "AC was only suspecting itself."

"We are not implicating anybody, we are neither security agents nor criminals. We only gave an advice to security agencies to ensure that whoever is behind the kidnap should be brought to justice. The AC is crying foul because of their antecedent. AC should allow the police to do their job," the PDP's Director of Communications and Strategy, Mr. Jackson Adebayo told our correspondent on the phone.

Awe said, "Ekiti government agents have concluded plans to sell a dummy to the police by framing up charges against AC members whom they would accuse of sponsoring kidnap and violence.

He said that Ekiti PDP has a record of violence even in the conduct of its internal affairs. "Ekiti has not known peace since the PDP debuted in the State. They have killed one another in ordinary ward congresses while they have extended their violence to members of other parties," he said.

Oni's government had blamed the abduction of the monarch and Olowoyo on opposition politicians who were desperate about creating crisis in the state.

Awe said that the AC had nothing to gain by disrupting the peace of Ekiti State because it has a good case at the tribunal and would not cause chaos in the same state it was waiting to govern.

Awe said, "It is the PDP which is losing grip on power and thought the only way out is to arrest the peace of the state, thereby creating an artificial state of chaos that would necessitate the declaration of emergency rule.

"We urge the Police and other security agents not to yield to the antics of the PDP that is desirous in using them to achieve through the back door a state of emergency that they could not ordinarily achieve."
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