Ahead of the June 18 governorship election in Ekiti State, the Segun Oni Campaign Organisation (SOCO), has alleged that the state All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government is planning to put the
Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, Oni, out of circulation.”
Apart from this, SOCO said prominent leaders of the party had been penciled in by the administration to be kidnapped or arrested on trump up charges to discredit them and create an atmosphere of fear before and during the election.
Director of Media and Publicity of SOCO, Mr. Jackson Adebayo, disclosed this in a
statement made available to journalists on Monday, saying that the plan was billed to begin to unfold today (Monday.)
According to Adebayo , the latest development is a follow up to another attempt on the life of Oni few days ago in which some people were shot by hired thugs of the ruling party.
“The government’s plan now is to be kidnapping or arresting SDP
leaders; they want to commence that on Monday. This is the reason for
their shooting of Saturday and Sunday.
The organization stated that it is because they want to use all that to frame up Segun Oni and other SDP leaders adding “We know their game-plan; and by the grace of God, they will fail, because the will of the people must be paramount.”
“They have been looking for how to put Oni out of circulation before but they have always failed to achieve that which explains the latest
attempted assassination on him.
” We want to place it on record that their games plan started at Efon Alaaye during the familiarisation tour of Asiwaju Segun Oni “when the APC thugs attacked us with guns and other dangerous weapons thinking that we would retaliate and there would be casualties to rope SDP leaders, for the same reason that they plan to arrest SDP
leaders; just to put them out of circulation and have a field day
perpetrating their anti-people plot for the election,”
Adebayo , however, implored voters in the state not to be cowed by the
brigandage of the ruling party, adding that they (the people) had the
power to decide who to govern them and nobody should arrogate any
contrary power to himself.
It had been reported on Saturday that some thugs who were suspected to
be members of the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria
(RTEAN), allegedly wearing the All Progressives Congress (APC) vests
and loaded in five buses shot sporadically at the campaign rally
venues of the SDP in Itaji-Ekiti and Oye-Ekiti, both in Oye Local
Government Area of the state.