APC accuses FG of terrorizing Osun people ahead of governorship election

The All Progressives Congress has accused the Federal Government of terrorizing the people of Osun State ahead of August 9 governorship election in the state.
APC in a statement issued in Lagos by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, wondered why the government will send agents of the Department of State Services (DSS) to the state when the present situation does not warrant such action.
According to the APC, some of the DSS agents were masked and clad in black, “ostensibly to harass innocent citizens in an unprovoked and primitive show of power that can only be described as sheer gangsterism.”
The party said, ”As widely reported, DSS agents, armed to the teeth and riding in over 50 trucks, drove around Osogbo and other parts of Osun State on Wednesday
blaring siren and shooting sporadically in the air, thus disrupting the normally peaceful life in the state.
”Residents who were visibly traumatized by the shameful display of state power ran helter-skelter and wondered why their government has sent masked men, or ninjas, to terrorize them. They now understand that the masked thugs who have been following the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate around on his campaign trail were actually government sanctioned.
“This is a power show taken too far, even with the well-known impunity tendencies of the Jonathan administration.”
It added: ”The real purpose of this fake petition and the consequent deployment of thousands of secret police to Osun is to harass, intimidate and arrest the leaders of the APC in the state, in a repeat of what transpired in Ekiti.
”Flooding Osun with irresponsible DSS officials to terrorize the residents is another low for a government that is notorious for abuse of power and federal institutions. It is no longer news that the military, the police and other security agencies are working for the Jonathan administration, rather than for all of Nigeria. What is new is that the security agencies have now been unleashed on the citizenry.
”What rankles even more is the constant assurances by President Jonathan that the election will be free and fair. How can we have a credible election in an atmosphere of state-led gangsterism? How can we have a credible election when the federal government that is supposed to protect the people and ensure violence-free polls is the same one that purveys violence? Where else in the world do secret police announce themselves by firing to scare away harmless citizens? When did masks become part of the State Security Service agents uniform?”