Abiodun, Adebutu clash as APC clears Ogun LG seats

T The All Progressives Congress has won all the 20 local government chairmanship and 236 councillors positions in the council elections held in Ogun on Saturday.

The Chairman of the Ogun State Independent Electoral Commission, Babatunde Osibodu, announced the results on Sunday at the commission’s headquarters in Abeokuta.

Osibodu said 19 political parties, including the Peoples Democratic Party and Labour Party, participated in the election.

Meanwhile, the Ogun State government on Sunday accused the PDP governorship candidate in the 2023 general elections, Oladipupo Adebutu, of assembling some policemen who reportedly opened fire on the newly elected Vice Chairman of Ikenne Local Government, Mohammed Efuwape, and another voter simply identified as Biola at Iperu during the Saturday poll.

Governor Dapo Abiodun’s Chief Press Secretary, Lekan Adeniran, made the allegation in a statement on Sunday.

Adeniran said that while the Vice Chairman escaped death by whiskers, Biola was not so lucky as the gun fired at him by these alleged police officers shattered his leg, and he is currently receiving medical treatment at the hospital.

The statement claimed that “Adebutu illegally brought in over 40 policemen from MOPOL 49 in Lagos, with PDP thugs riding on Okadas, going around and trying to snatch ballot boxes while brandishing guns and other weapons in the Ikenne Local Government in their desperate attempt to scuttle the electoral process.”

But Adebutu’s media aide, Afolabi Orekoya, in a statement on Sunday, described the allegations by the state government as “lies from the pit of hell and an attempt to cover up the intimidation and oppression of the people of Ogun East during the local government’s election.”

Orekoya accused Governor Abiodun of promoting thuggery and violence in Ogun East.

Giving an account of Saturday’s incident, Orekoya said, “Adebutu’s son was attacked by a group of thugs in the neighbourhood very close to Adebutu’s house, not at a polling unit but on his way to the house.

“While the thugs began to shoot in their usual manner, they shot one of the policemen attached to Hon. Adebutu still around his house and not at any polling unit as claimed by the government. The shot policeman was quickly rescued and taken to the hospital.

“The thugs and their paymaster, including the governor’s security operatives, were all working hand in hand and they stormed Hon. Adebutu’s house, claiming it was on the instruction of the Inspector General who had been fed with the wrong account of the incident.

“After about forty minutes, armed policemen with armoured tanks and trucks, numbering over a hundred, stormed Hon. Adebutu’s house to arrest Hon. Oladipupo Adebutu, but he requested for his arrest warrant, and they could not produce any. They left his house after about one hour of holding him hostage.”