By Banji Ayoola
It is the collective responsibility of all Nigerians to work for the emergence of a new country of their choice of which all will be proud, according to the speaker of Osun State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Adewale Egbedun.
In the same vein, he said that all citizens owe it a sacred duty to sanitize the state, adding that if everybody is willing to be responsible, “society will be better for us to live.”
He, therefore, charged Nigerians to be responsible citizens in whatever role they find themselves, noting that the answer to a better society that all right-thinking citizens yearn for is a collective duty.
Egbedun gave the charge on Thursday evening while reprimanding some police officers caught extorting citizens on the road in the Ido-Osun area, reiterating his commitment to upholding the oath he had sworn to while taking office.
The speaker was returning from a trip to Ayedire Local Government when some distressed citizens reportedly flagged down his vehicle to complain about the illicit activities of some unscrupulous policemen and asked for his intervention.
The victims who were traveling for the scheduled popular Osun Osogbo festival, narrated their ordeal at the hands of the policemen.
They added that the policemen who refused all pleas to allow them to continue on their journey allegedly forced three of them to make an electronic transfer of N20,000 each from their bank accounts.
When approached for their side of the story, the leader of the police team reportedly confirmed to the Speaker that they collected the quoted amount from the three commuters and pleaded for forgiveness.
Egbedun was said to have addressed the commuters and passers-by who stopped to witness the incident to stress that it is the citizens’ collective responsibility to sanitize the state, adding that “if as citizens, we are willing to be responsible, society will be better for us to live.”
The Speaker called the Osun State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Kehinde Longe to report the conduct of his personnel to him, who immediately summoned the officers to the State headquarters for possible disciplinary action.
