Hoodlums disrupt Ogun SDP governorship campaign, cart away empowerment items

Laide Raheem, Abeokuta

Hoodlums suspected to be political thugs of opposition parties on Friday evening, invaded and disrupted campaign of the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

The fracas, which lasted about 10 minutes, saw party faithful and onlookers scamper for safety.

Crisis erupted when the SDP party faithful and supporters at Ijebu Ode, and some unidentified hoodlums stormed the campaign venue shouting opposition slogans.

The situation became uncontrollable when the guards at the event prevented the thugs from taking over the dais, a development that led to sporadic shooting into the air by the thugs.

Items such as gas cookers, sewing machines, hair dryers, refrigerators and others, brought to the venue for empowerment were carted away by the thugs.

The incident, however, brought the campaign programme to an abrupt end, as security operatives whisked away the gubernatorial candidate and other VIPs at the event to safety.

Reacting to the incident, the SDP governorship candidate declared that the attack was premeditated by an unnamed opposition candidate.

Paseda noted that he was never attacked before the incident, saying the latest development proved that he had become a threat with his growing popularity to opposition parties in the state. He, however, commended the Nigeria Police attached to Ijebu Ode Division for responding swiftly and dispersing the thugs without anybody sustaining injury.

His words: “In my state, most especially my senatorial districts, we have never been attacked before, we are very peaceful, I only associate with peace.

“I think we started the campaign very fine until we saw a set of people who are not our party members. We try to manage and calm them but they are shouting opposition slogans and the way it was done I think it was a coup plan because I’ve never seen that before attacking our campaign. “We have permission to the campaign at that spot and the police, TRACE, Vigilante and Civil Defence officers were on ground, but I thank God nobody died.

“I will personally lodge a complaint to the Commissioner of Police on Monday to ensure tight security at our campaign ground to ensure safety of our campaign ground to ensure safety of our members and the electorate.”