The All Progressive Congress senatorial candidate for Osun West, Dr. Amidu Tadese, alleged attacks were sponsored on him and supporters in Ikire, Irewole Local Government Area of the stae which is the home town of his rival Akogun Lere Oyewumi. In this interview with KAMIL OPEYEMI, Tadese demanded to know how many such attacks would the opponent carry out ahead of the elections?
Can you explicitly explain what led to the attacks where about two people are said to have died?
Well, you know Irewole Local Government is one of the ten local governments in my Senatorial District and aside Iwo local government and Ejigbo, its the third local government where you have highest PVC collection in the West. So, I know I need to beef up my campaign in that area. Last week, precisely Thursday and Friday, the leadership of my party approached the DPO for a permit for rallies on Monday and Tuesday of this week and the permit was granted.
On Sunday morning we heard news that Akogun Oyewunmi of the People Democratic Party, equally intended to do the same assignment, within the same period of time. So, since we didn’t want to accuse any party members, we approached the DPO again on Sunday. I called for a meeting of the leadership of the Chieftains in Irèwole local government where an itenary was drawn up.
On Monday, I was expected to be at ward 10 and all other wards in Ikire township except ward 9, while on Tuesday I was expected to be in ward 11 and ward 9.
So, precisely yesterday (Tuesday) morning, we approached our campaign from Ward 11. I don’t if you are familiar with that place? Ward 11 has 23 polling units and when you are campaigning in rural areas, you just have to visit all the units. So, it took a lot of time. From morning, we were at that place till 5 o’clock before we came back to the town. By the time we came back to the town, our members in Ward 9 had put up canopy and they were all seated. So, they received us warmly and they gave us seat. Thereafter, we started with the opening prayer. They asked a Christian to pray then a Muslim and the third person was a traditional religion worshipper.
As at the time the third person was praying, from Naira and Kobo area end of the road, they started throwing bottles initially at us; followed by gunshots, and when we saw this that we were not armed, neither did we expect it, the first option was to run away but to my surprise those people were specifically looking for my aides. They wounded my PA, macheted his hand and they kidnapped my driver from where he was. They damaged my vehicle apart from the fact that they damaged some other campaign vehicles and vehicles belonging to other members of my campaign team. They chased us everywhere, eventually they regrouped at one filling station very close to Bovas.
At the place where they regrouped, they launched another attack. They were now chasing me to Wasimi Agbede Junction, on that same day (yesterday). So, when I realized that, I had to take cover till when the matter went down till late in the night before I left Ikire.
The way I see it, it was an attempt on my life purely! The leadership of the party at Irewole had reported at the police station and I have equally taken up a petition to the State Commissioner of Police and probably the top hierarchy of the Police Force.
Can you specifically say that your opponent sponsored this attack on your campaign train?
Of course, my opponent coordinated the whole thing.He even chased my team with his vehicle (his jeep).
Quoting from what you just told me now , there were two attempts on your life yesterday, how many minutes interval between both attacks?
Almost an hour. The first was around 5:05pm -5:10 and the other one was well after 6 o’clock around 6:30pm .
Has there been anytime in Iwo, where you hail from, that this kind of attempt occured?
He frequently visits Iwo unmolested, unchallenged. We don’t need to do that.
Aside from the fact that your political leaders have already taken steps over this matter, you, as a senatorial candidate what are you doing about that?
That’s what am telling you. That I have informed my lawyer to come up with a petition to the State’s CP and highest authority of the Police Force in the country.
What does this incident portend about the coming election?
Well, I think they are only trying to create fear because virtually there is nothing that can do to the election. You can’t come out on the day of election and attack people. How many polling units is he going to attack people? We have well over 1,000 polling units in Osun West. How many is he going to attack. No! It’s an exercise in futility.
He doesn’t need to do that, It’s too mean of him to engage in such thing and I am not too surprised looking at what happened during the primary of the PDP.