IBADAN, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – The Oyo State police command has vowed to clamp down on political thugs destroying campaign billboards belonging to rival parties in the State.
The Leader of the Southwest zone of New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP), Alhaji Bisi Olopoeyan, on 3 November, raised an alarm that almost 30 of the party’s billboards at the cost of N350,000 each, have been destroyed by political thugs.
He alleged that the thugs are working for the incumbent and candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Governor Seyi Makinde, across Oyo State.
Olopoeyan made the allegation while addressing the party’s stakeholders in Oyo Federal Constituency, Oyo State to sensitize supporters ahead of the 25 February, and 11 March, 2023 polls.
According to Olopoeyan: “Governor Makinde forgot that destruction of billboards cannot stop his defeat in 2023.”
A week later, Deji Aboderin, a House of Representatives candidate in Ibadan North East/ Ibadan South East Federal Constituency on the platform of Social Democratic Party (SDP), also alleged that all his campaign billboards have been destroyed.
He claimed that all his billboards erected in areas like Challenge, Gate opposite civic centre and Iwo road within the federal constituency, have been totally destroyed.
Aboderin said his campaign billboards were being destroyed because the ruling party is afraid of defeat.
He said it will be wrong for certain individuals to sponsor political thugs to destroy his campaign billboards.
Aboderin, while speaking further, urged security agencies to rise up to the occasion.
The command’s spokesperson, SP Adewale Osifeso, in a statement on Sunday, said the Oyo State Commissioner of Police, Adebowale Williams has ordered his deputy in charge of the State Criminal Investigation Department to commence full-scale investigations to uncover those behind the destruction of billboards in the State.
According to him, some unscrupulous and criminal minded agents of mischief and anarchy perpetrated the crime during the weekend.
The command also warned political big wigs and other Stakeholders in the state to put a check on their overzealous loyalists and supporters who are driven by the ideologies of enforcing dominance and territorialism through “needless aggression and violence”.
The command further appealed to parents, guardians and other opinion leaders to caution their wards against being used by desperate politicians as Canon-fodder and destructive tools.