By The Osun State Government has raised the alarm over what it described as systematic invasion and attacks on the homes of top government officials by the state police command, without proper search warrants.
The government said the latest incident was the invasion of the residence of the Secretary to the State Government, SSG, whose house was broken into by a combined team of police officers led by the Deputy Commissioner for Operations. It said family members of the SSG were taken to unknown destinations during the raid.
According to the government, the operation on the SSG’s residence followed a similar raid and arrest at the homes of about six commissioners and other top government functionaries.
The government said that at the time the SSG’s house was invaded, ward officials were holding a meeting within the compound, while the SSG himself was attending a stakeholders’ forum organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
It said the police had, a day earlier, raided the residence of the Commissioner for Energy at Ikire, ransacking the building and destroying several properties.
The government added that five other commissioners had reported their homes being shadowed by police, with some of the residences broken into even though nothing illegal was found in them.
It said reports available to the government indicated that several members of the Accord party were being held in cells at the State Criminal Investigation Department without being granted bail.
In a statement signed by the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Oluomo Kolapo Alimi, the government described the raids on the SSG and commissioners as an aggravated assault on the government and people of Osun State, warning that the campaign of repression posed a grave danger to democracy. It accused the police of unprofessional conduct in support of the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress.
The statement said the police command’s open attacks on government officials confirmed its partiality and partisanship, describing the force as becoming a direct tool of the Osun APC and accusing it of lawlessness that violates the spirit and letter of the constitution.
It noted that the alleged violations were occurring even as the national chairman of INEC was meeting with stakeholders in the state, and warned that the police had become a major threat to the conduct of a free and fair election in Osun.
The government called on traditional rulers, the Nigeria Police Service, the Inspector-General of Police, the National Security Adviser, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to pay attention to what it called an escalation of targeted violence against top government officials and Accord members, warning that it must be stopped before it degenerates into a general breakdown of law and order.
It said the governor had consistently urged the populace to remain calm and not take the law into their own hands, but warned that the situation was reaching a boiling point, and called for efforts to save the state’s democracy from what it described as lawless elements within the Nigerian police.
