Date: 2014-06-16

The Kwara state chapter of the PDP is saddened by the raw display of violence and unprovoked attacks on its new members, who decamped from the APC to the PDP on Friday, 13th June, 2014, at Alore area of Ilorin West Local Government Area of Kwara state, leading to the death of one of the defectors, Mr. Tajudeen Eba, whose only offence was his insistence on exercising his right to association, and which the Kwara APC found sacrilegious!

Our hearts are particularly with the family of the deceased, and generally with the residents of Ilorin and Kwara state at large as we all confront an unprecedented siege by a ruling party that is growing increasingly intolerant of opposition voices.

We are heart-rendered by the gruesome killing of one of the defectors, Master Tajudeen, by suspected APC thugs and alleged members of the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) who were contracted and heavily funded by a high profile Special Adviser to Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed, to unleash mayhem on the innocent defectors.

On several occasions, we have raised an alarm over the activities of the Special Adviser vis-a-vis his nurturing of the OPC boys ahead of the 2015 election. But all our cries have fallen on deaf ears, thereby leaving our members, who are now being increasingly cowed by an intolerant ruling party in the state, at the mercy of thugs and street urchins.

It is the same government functionary that orchestrated a kangaroo 'defection' of alleged PDP members in apparent panic reaction to the open renunciation of membership of the APC by over 2000 former members of the APC in Kwara state on 13th Friday, June 2014 at Alore area of Kwara state.

Instead of honestly embarking on a soul-searching about the true state of its political worth in Kwara state, the APC has continued to live in denial, resorted to cheap propaganda and outright lies, and now raw violence, with its commissioned thugs invading the private residences of the new decampees in the Local Government Area.

The least we can do in his memory is to commit ourselves to sustaining this struggle for the defeat of the tyranny of incumbency and the enthronement of popular and participatory democracy in Kwara State that is founded on internal democracy, which recognises and respects the constitutional right of every eligible citizen to associate freely with any political party of their choice without let or hindrance and without fear of intimidation or molestation.

It is our belief and prayer that all those who conspired to murder this young man and all those political principalities and powers on whose account he was murdered have, by the Grace of God, murdered sleep in their personal lives and political career.

Meanwhile, we hereby cry out to the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, to come urgently to our aids as the security of lives and properties of our members are no longer guaranteed. We unreservedly demand the immediate investigation of the Special Adviser concerned, just as we ask that the eighteen APC thugs arrested by the authority of the Kwara police be thoroughly invested, their sponsors unraveled and prosecuted appropriately. We shall not take kindly to any attempt to sweep the case under the carpet.

In conclusion, we commend the gallant effort of the officers and men of the Kwara Police Command, the Nigerian Army, the Airforce Officers and all other relevant security agencies deployed to quench the fracas.

We ask our members to remain calm and not make any retaliatory moves. We assure them that we are already in talks with the police on how a repeat of such will not recur again.

Once again, we commiserate with the family of Master Tajudeen. We pray that his innocent blood that was shed on the street of Ilorin will water the tree that will bear the fruits of liberty, peace and genuine democracy in a new and united Kwara, while his spirit will hunt his blood thirsty murderers.

Rex K. Olawoye
PRO