Leadership of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun has passed vote of no confidence in the Commissioner of Police in the state, Patrick Kehinde Longe, accusing him of partisanship. 

This is even as the party leadership called on the Inspector General of Police, Alkali Baba Usman, to transfer Longe to avert the civil unrest perpetrating in connivance with the members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Addressing a press conference, yesterday, at the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign Office, Osogbo, acting Chairman of Osun APC, Tajudeen Lawal, who decried the pockets of political atrocities allegedly perpetrated by PDP thugs since the emergence of Governor Ademola Adeleke-led government, said it was bizarre that the police had connived with members of the ruling party to make life unbearable for members of the opposition.

Lawal, who reeled out some of the political attacks carried out by PDP hoodlums against members of his party in the last few months, said it is apposite to effect the removal of the police commissioner who had openly and clearly shown partisanship in his official conducts since his deployment to Osun.

He said: “Leaders and members of our party have not known peace for a day since the tribunal judgement that sacked the embattled Governor Ademola Adeleke from office and also ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw the certificate of return from him and give same to the winner of the election, Adegboyega Oyetola.”

Lawal questioned why Adeleke and PDP-led government wouldn’t have raised any alarm as regards killing and maiming of innocent souls in the state, saying if the Adeleke-sponsored thugs were not killing, maiming or attacking their members in the various towns and villages in the state, the handlers of the PDP would be organising sponsored protests within the state and outside as far as Abuja to whip up false sentiments that their sacked governor whom the tribunal had affirmed forgery of school documents against, is a saint.

“To state that this is a more trying period in the political history of our state cannot be farfetched as what our members are experiencing from the PDP goons can better be imagined than experienced.

“As I speak, almost all the members of APC, in the Atakumosa-East Local Government Area of the have been run out of towns and villages in the local government by daredevil and notorious PDP thugs who were acting the scripts of one Sanya Omirin, the PDP House of Representatives candidate for Ijesa-South federal constituency.

“The property of scores of APC members in the Atakumosa-East Local Government Area have been wilfully destroyed by the PDP thugs as a ploy to prevent our members and supporters from taking part in the forthcoming general election. Some of our members are now hibernating and squatting in Ilesa, Ile-Ife, Osogbo and other towns to evade political attacks.

“The most pathetic and annoying development is that some of the PDP leaders have formed an habit of inciting PDP members and thugs against our people at different political fora, flaunting the support of the police in carrying out their anti-social, undemocratic, wicked and primitive activities against perceived or real political opponents,” he said.

Lawal further disclosed that Adeleke and the PDP leadership in the state had concluded a coordinated arrangement to use the police to embark on the arrest of some of the leaders of his party to disenfranchise them and create fears in their minds and that of their followers ahead of the presidential and other elections in the state.

The APC acting chairman averred that the PDP, Adeleke and Osun State Police Command, under Longe, should be held responsible for any breakdown of law and order as the general elections are to take place in a few days time.

“We are calling on the IGP to intervene in our plight by urgently effecting the transfer of Longe, as his best is found out not to be in the best interest of any genuine democratic setting,” Omowaiye said.