Comrade Timi Frank, the former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), urged President Bola Tinubu on Monday to summon former Governor Gboyega Oyetola, the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, and his APC goons to Osun State.
Following skirmishes between APC and PDP supporters over control of local government areas in Osun State, which have reportedly claimed many lives, Frank said in a statement released in Abuja that the appeal is now required to restore calm in the state.
The fight between the PDP and the APC for control of the local government secretariats became violent on Monday in Osun State.
The APC and the PDP have conflicting interpretations of a Court of Appeal ruling.
Oyetola, the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, and Governor Adeleke have been at odds with the Court of Appeal’s purported restoration decision.
Citing security concerns, Governor Adeleke insisted that the fired council chairmen could not take their places again.
Oyetola did, however, state that the legal tools would be used to carry out the Appeal Court’s ruling.
The council executives should have resumed yesterday, he added.
Frank said: “Intelligence at our disposal has revealed that the present strategy and plan by Oyetola is to make the state ungovernable for Governor Ademola Adeleke, so they can hide under the guise of crisis in the state to declare a state of emergency in Osun State.”
He bemoaned the fact that Osun State native Dr. Ajibola Basiru, the APC’s national secretary, had called on live television Monday night to declare a state of emergency in the state in order to prevent more violence after Oyetola and his APC thugs orchestrated the crises.
Basiru was cited by him as saying: “I will suggest that perhaps it will be necessary for the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency. It has gotten to that stage where hapless people coming from farms are attacked by uncontrollable PDP thugs.”
Frank said: “Their major target is to declare a state of emergency because they know that if the elections are allowed to hold today, Governor Adeleke will still win.
“So they want to abort his second term through crisis and violence to pave the way for the declaration of a state of emergency.
“The President is hereby called upon to break his silence in spite of the fact that Osun is his state of origin and hometown, but the state is being ruled by the PDP, and Governor Adeleke is the people’s choice.
“Therefore, we are using this medium to let him know that if the present crisis is allowed to degenerate beyond what has already happened, both Oyetola and himself, as the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, would be held responsible.
“Presently, Oyetola is using federal might to engineer evil and anarchy in Osun State, and this nonsense must stop with all urgency.”
“Because what is happening in Osun State is sheer impunity, dictatorship, and arrogance on the part of the APC that is trying to capture every part of the country at all costs—not through the ballot but through impunity and criminality,” Frank, the ambassador of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) to East Africa and the Middle East, urged all well-meaning Nigerians to speak up in order to save the country’s democracy.
“We call on the people of Osun to stand strongly with Governor Adeleke in the face of this aggression being fueled by Oyetola and the APC.
“They must not be intimidated but resist the rascality of federal might that the ex-Governor and his party are using the way they have always done.
“Come to think of it, Oyetola was governor for four years without any developmental projects to show for it, but Adeleke has been there in the last two years and has done so much which has profoundly impacted the lives of the people.
“Despite the intimidation, we encourage the people of Osun State to stand firm in support of Adeleke, to prevent any form of distraction in rendering good governance in the state as part of his electioneering promises.
“They must equally rise up against every plot to declare a state of emergency in the state courtesy of Oyetola and the APC, through which they intend to destabilize Adeleke’s administration and take over the state by all means, because they know that Oyetola or any other APC candidate cannot win an election in the state to unseat Adeleke.
“So, that’s why Oyetola and the APC are very desperate to take the state by force because they believe that is the President’s hometown.”
