By Bolu-Olu Esho
Tuesday and Wednesday last week would remain indelible in the memory of many citizens of Ondo State, as congress mutated to bloodbath.
The national Congress committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) arrived in the state to monitor the ward and local government congresses of the party in the state.
The committee led by Mrs. Margaret Aruruenu had met with the governor and the party’s leadership in the state on Monday.
According to the guidelines of the party, the next step is for the party to hold a stakeholders’ meeting at the state level where they will deliberate on the modalities of the Congress elections.
Elders of the party are expected to be in attendance including the governor of the state, Lucky Aiyedatiwa.
On Tuesday, when the meeting was on, some hoodlums alleged to be members of National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) stormed the conference hall in the party’s secretariat where the meeting was holding and attacked the state chairman of the party, Ade Adetimehin and everyone believed to be against the party chieftain the hoodlums were in support of.
They disrupted the meeting as everyone ran for cover as the hoodlums were armed with guns, axes, machetes, knives and other dangerous weapons.
Adetimehin was beaten and dragged on the ground and his driver was beaten to pulp.
He sustained a fracture on his right leg, his arm was hacked with machetes and his mouth was stitched just like his arm.
Some other chieftains of the party were rushed to the hospital as they were on the danger list having lost much blood.
As if that wasn’t enough, the following day, which was fixed for the ward congress election, some thugs went on the trail of the state chairman, Adetimehin, to his country home, Idanre, Idanre Ifedore Local Government Area of the state.
When they sighted his younger brother, Raphael Adetimehin, who has a striking semblance with him, the armed miscreants instantly shot at him, but he was unexplainably not hurt.
Having discovered he was not hurt, they pounced on him and hacked him with axes, machetes, and sticks, and stabbed him till he passed out.
After their departure, the man was rushed to the hospital and fortunately, he was confirmed to be in coma by the doctor on duty.
His Toyota Camry was torched by the hoodlums who ensured it was reduced to ashes.
His brother, when speaking with journalists on phone, was panicky, expressing fear that his brother might not be able to survive the attack.
He said: “He was attacked because they thought it was me. I was told they shot at him, hacked him with axes, cutlasses and stabbed many times until he stopped moving.
“When they thought he had died, that’s when they left him.
“He was later rushed to the hospital by some good people of Idanre after the assailants had left.
“He’s still in a coma. He had lost a lot of blood before he was taken to the hospital.
“We are praying that he will survive this attack. I don’t know what I have done that made me deserve this. Why are they after my life over party congress?”
Besides Adetimehin’s younger brother, four people were killed by the armed thugs in the same local government the same day.
However, Police in a statement by its spokesman, Abayomi Jimoh, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), said only two people were killed in the attacks.
In his reaction to the attack on the party secretariat by the thugs suspected to be members of NURTW, Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa said the information at his disposal was that some hoodlums stormed the secretariat to foment trouble in support of some aspirants.
This ran contrary to the accounts of the victims who alleged that the miscreants carried out the attacks on the instruction of the governor.
But the governor distanced himself from the perpetrators, saying he sent the state Commissioner of Police to deploy his men to the secretariat to dislodge the miscreants immediately.
He later, through his chief Press Secretary, Prince Ebenezer Adeniyan, emphasised that he has always been fair to everyone.
Adeniyan said: “The Governor is the leader of the party and father to all party members. He has always provided leadership that embraces all groups and interests in the party since he became governor.
“He’s the first governor in the history of the state to hold quarterly stakeholders engagement with party leaders and this has fostered unity and sense of belonging in the APC in the State.
“The pockets of issues in the ward congress of the party have nothing to do with the governor and that was why he called on security agencies to restore order at the party secretariat on Tuesday.”
On the Idanre killings, the governor called for investigation, arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators.
Adeniyan assured that “Mr. Governor has also called on security agencies to investigate the crisis that took place in Idanre earlier today and bring the perpetrators to justice.
“The Governor urges all aspirants contesting for party positions to call their followers and supporters to order as the government will not tolerate any breakdown of law and order in any part of the state.”
Despite the order handed down by the governor on Thursday, no one has been arrested in connection with the attacks and killings.
What baffled most pundits is the fact that all victims of the attacks are members of APC.
They noted that the attackers are also members of the party, noting that they were able to identify those they should attack at the party’s secretariat on Tuesday during the stakeholders’ meeting.
It was observed that the thugs carried out the attacks with precision as they didn’t beat anyone in error.
The intra-party crisis was said to be unprecedented in the state.
The national leadership of the party appears to have taken steps to intervene in the crisis if the report, that the governor hurriedly left for Abuja on Thursday afternoon when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu summoned him over the crisis, is anything to go by.
Although it was observed that the governor disembarked from the project’s inauguration midway, asking his deputy, Dr. Olayide Adelami, to continue with the programme organised in commemoration of the governor’s first year in office.
Nevertheless, the state Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Idowu Ajanaku, denied the claim, saying there wasn’t anything like that.
He said Governor Aiyedatiwa was not summoned by the President as claimed.
Pundits cautioned that the crisis might be the beginning of the collapse of APC in the state, which they described as too risky when the general elections are coming up next year.
According to them, the crisis, if not quickly resolved, would, to a great extent, affect the performance of President Tinubu in the general elections.
One of them said: “The crisis has been festering for a long time. There had been several attempts to remove the state chairman of the party, but the intervention of Mr. President stopped this when he said all the chairmen should be left till the national congress of the party would hold.
“These attacks are all about the struggle to dictate who members of the state executive of the party are.”
A chieftain of APC in the state, who preferred anonymity, revealed that the state chairman was not loved by the Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa-led administration and has been kept at bay in all the state programmes.
He said they claimed that during the crisis that the governor faced when he was the Deputy Governor, particularly when his boss, the late Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, was critically ill, the state chairman was not on his side.
Supporters and allies of the governor believe that Adetimehin wanted to reap from where he did not show.
But as the crisis is festering, the end may not be too near.
The Interior Minister, Olubunmi Tunj-Ojo, was said to be the target of the attacks because of his ferocious ground works for the actualisation of the second term bid of President Tinubu.
He’s alleged to have taken over the control of the party through his various empowerment programmes via various support groups formed to ensure President Tinubu sweeps the votes across all the wards in the state far more than what was recorded in 2023.
Another stalwart of the party alleged that Adetimehin had been doing the bidding of Tunji-Ojo and many party members had queued behind him.
However, pundits emphasised on the need for the security agencies in the state to fish out and prosecute those who carried out the killings irrespective of who they are working for to forestall recurrence of such dastardly acts.
Independent
