How I sustain peace in Osun despite provocation by APC

Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, on Monday, said he has proven to be a crisis manager with an eye on public peace and prosperity in the face of provocation by the opposition All Progressives Congress over control of local government areas in the state.

He said the sustenance of peace across the state, “despite the evil plot of anarchists within the opposition,” was due to his security acumen and penchant for peace and tranquillity.

Speaking, the governor’s spokesperson, Olawale Rasheed, in a statement, described as “libellous and defamatory” the allegation of importing thugs levelled against top functionaries of the current administration by those he referred to as “children of anarchy,” maintaining that the allegation is “a baseless concoction without any iota of truth.”

He said, “From the beginning of the face-off, the state governor, being a security expert and a criminologist, had deployed his skills of conflict resolution to sustain peace even with the worst of provocations. The mapping of the entire state revealed that the opposition APC was mainly interested in burning the state down and destroying the elected political structures. Mr. Governor smartly denied the APC the fuel for its arsonistic plan.

“The outcome is the peace we are enjoying today in Osun State. Osun people are peacefully running their lives with huge gratitude to the governor. The APC, on the contrary, is in severe pain because all its destructive plans against Osun and her people have failed.

“So, the opposition resorted to blackmail and name-calling. Neither the visiting governors nor our Chief of Staff imported any hoodlums into the state. Governors Seyi Makinde and Bala Muhammed came to Osun on a solidarity peace mission based on their statutory positions within the Governors’ Forum, and their message was that parties to the face-off should abide by the rule of law and avoid illegal self-help.

“The Peoples Democratic Party lost five of its members on Monday, with about 85 severely injured from gunshots and machetes. The governor immediately ordered PDP members to stay away from the local government secretariats and avoid retaliatory attacks. He repeated the directive to elected local government chairmen, vice chairmen, and councillors yesterday during the swearing-in event. Governor Adeleke is a peace-loving leader with the full backing of the Osun people to continue delivering good governance.

“We hasten to remind the APC that the public is aware of its stock in trade as a party of sickening fake news with a huge electoral deficit and a widely confirmed unelectability attribute.”