Osun Government Rejects Police Advice To Suspend Local Government Election

 … Berates Them For Allegedly Taking Sides With APC 

By Joseph Sunday 

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The Osun State Government has rejected the advice from the Nigeria Police Force suggesting to it to suspend the Saturday local government election bided to hold in all the 30 local government areas of the State. The government equally berated the leading security agency in Nigeria of allegedly taking sides with the All Progressives Congress, APC, ahead of the election.

Reacting to the last minute Police advice issued late on Friday night, the Honourable Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Oluomo Kolapo Alimi speaking on behalf of the Osun State Government described the Police advise as unnecessary, assuring that the State is peaceful, emphasizing the need for court orders to be obeyed. 

According to the Honourable Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, he said, “the government has acknowledged the security advice from the Nigerian Police Force but regret to announce that the advice is rejected on the ground of rule of law and aversion to police partisanship.

The Governor Ademola Adeleke led Osun State Government accused the leadership of the Nigeria Police Force in Abuja of bias and partisanship, describing their actions as contravening every democratic tenets and exposed the pretence of the Service to be serving the public good while in actual fact, they are promoting illegality of the APC which reinforces the essence of them rejecting their Greek gift.

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Alimi argued further that, “from the beginning of the face off, the police has breached best practices by its open support for the All Progressive Congress, a party that is pushing for illegality through a non- existing court order. The whole world knows how the police actively aided the APC to enforce a reinstatement order that was never issued by any court of law.

“He said the Osun government has expressed the worry that a law enforcement agency has suddenly become a partisan wing of a political party, the APC, thereby losing all toga of a fair law agency. The negative role of the police to ignite the current face off made its advice a poison chocolate.

“We also call the attention of the police to the court judgment of today. It contains three orders which affirm vacancies in Osun councils by authenticating the sacking of the APC council chieftains directed the police and other security agencies to provide security for the election and gave go ahead to fresh LG elections by Saturday 22nd.

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“Instead of the police to obey court order, the service is regrettably pursuing its partisan line by actively working against rule of law as espoused by today’s court ruling.

“If the police choses to disobey court orders, the Osun state government will not go against rule of law, hence the decision of the state government to support the state electoral commission to conduct a credible free and fair elections tomorrow.

“We thank the police for their advice. We respectfully turned down the request while we urge Osun voters to peacefully exercise their voting rights on Saturday”. 

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