For the umpteenth time, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has alleged that the Peoples Democratic Party-led federal government has flooded Osun State with thousands of masked operatives of the Department of State Services ahead of the August 9 gubernatorial election in the state.
In a statement issued in Lagos by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the party wondered why the federal government would send DSS operatives “masked and clad in black” to harass innocent citizens of the state.
“As widely reported, DSS agents, armed to the teeth and riding in over 50 trucks, drove around Osogbo and other parts of Osun State on Wednesday blaring siren and shooting sporadically in the air, thus disrupting the normally peaceful life in the state,” Mohammed said.
“Residents who were visibly traumatised by the shameful display of state power ran helter-skelter and wondered why their government has sent masked men, or ninjas, to terrorise them. They now understand that the masked thugs who have been following the PDP candidate around on his campaign trail were actually government sanctioned. This is a power show taken too far, even with the well-known impunity tendencies of the Jonathan administration,” he added.
According to the party, information at its disposal showed that 5,000 more security officers are in the process of being dispatched to the state before the election, on the basis of an orchestrated petition alleging that certain APC leaders are planning to foment trouble during the election.
“The real purpose of this fake petition and the consequent deployment of thousands of secret police to Osun is to harass, intimidate and arrest the leaders of the APC in the state, in a repeat of what transpired in Ekiti,” Mohammed said, adding that “Flooding Osun with irresponsible DSS officials to terrorise the residents is another low for a government that is notorious for abuse of power and federal institutions. It is no longer news that the military, the police and other security agencies are working for the Jonathan Administration, rather than for all of Nigeria.”
