Stop playing with Tribune reporter’s ordeals, Oyo ACN tells PDP, lambasts Ladoja

Stop playing with Tribune reporter’s ordeals, Oyo ACN tells PDP, lambasts Ladoja

" its leader and former Governor Rashidi Ladoja and the spokesman of the party were suffering from “a psychotic delusion of grandeur.”

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Oyo State chapter, has likened the accusation of high-handedness leveled against its party-led government by the state Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in a recent assault on a Nigerian Tribune reporter to a case of the proverbial thief who, because of failure to apprehend him on time, turning around to accuse the owner of the good of theft.

The party, in the same vein, deplored a recent statement attributed to the spokesman of the Accord Party (AP) in the state, Mr. Dotun Oyelade, which claimed that the party was the bride in Oyo State politics, stating that the trio of the party, its leader and former Governor Rashidi Ladoja and the spokesman of the party were suffering from “a psychotic delusion of grandeur.”

The ACN made these known in a release issued by its Publicity Secretary, Hon Dauda Kolawole.

While reacting to the PDP statement, Hon. Kolawole said that since no state of the federation had any control of the military, if indeed the accusation that the Tribune reporter was beaten black and blue by a military man was found out to be true, then the PDP, which it says controls the federal apparatus of coercion, must be held guilty of the crime.

“Oyo controls neither the police nor the military but the PDP-led federal government. On the part of our government, we have demonstrated the humaneness which is the credo of our party, the ACN. Top functionaries of the government of Oyo State have, at least twice, visited the injured journalist on his sick bed at the UCH, offering physical, emotional and even spiritual comfort to Mr. Laolu Harold. We do not have any record of the PDP having any of its officers visiting or showing same level of support, either emotional or financial, to the journalist, other than their vacuous newspaper grandstanding,” said the ACN.

The party said that the government of Senator Abiola Ajimobi had demonstrated to the whole world that the violence which the PDP bequeathed to the body polity of the state, had become a thing of the past, stating that no responsible government, not in the least one that prides itself as a discontinuation of the violence of the past, would be involved in the kind of treatment meted out to Mr. Harold.  

The ACN said that even though the Ajimobi government had made a significant milestone in the area of urban renewal in Oyo State by changing the landscape of dirt inherited from the PDP, it had done this so far with the cooperation of the people, most of whom willingly removed their shops and other property obstructing the aesthetics of the state.

“It is apparent that the PDP cannot like us or our government, both of which have succeeded in attracting accolades to Oyo State for its sudden beauty, but they should not play politics with the Tribune journalist’s ordeals. Let us come together to denounce the brutality visited on Mr. Harold by whoever is responsible among the forces and let us commend a government that has succeeded where the PDP had failed abysmally,” the ACN said.

  While reacting to the Accord Party statement, the ACN said it was challenging the party to a debate on the achievements of Senator Ladoja as governor of about four years, placed side by side what Governor Ajimobi has done in 18 months.

“Ladoja is a dreamer who merely travels on a self-voyage of grandstanding, articulating a vision to build three over-head bridges while in government and a circular road which was constructed only on billboards. What did he do while he was governor? How many of those bridges did he build? He should tell the people. In 18 months, Ajimobi has done times-three of what Ladoja did in almost four years as governor,” the ACN said.