The Eyitayo Jegede Campaign Organisation (EJCO) has alerted of ongoing destruction of campaign posters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
governorship candidate, Mr. Eyitayo Jegede (SAN) in Owo, by political thugs loyal to Governor Rotimi Akeredolu.
The EJCO, in a statement by its Head, Media Research, Mr. Samuel Fasua, said reports reaching it confirmed that those perpetrating the act were political thugs in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Akeredolu.
“In the last one week, political thugs loyal to the APC and Akeredolu have been gamboling round the streets of Owo, the governor’s paternal native home, tearing Jegede’s posters and causing mayhem within neighbourhoods,” the EJCO disclosed.
“The apparent aim of the poster-tearing thugs and their paymaster is to impose on the people’s psyche, the impression that Akeredolu is from Owo and as such, should not be challenged there.”
“However myopic that mentality is, it is equally a fact of history that Jegede too is from Owo, as his mother hails from Ipele, a prominent Owo community.
“As Akeredolu is an Owo indigene by ancestry, so is Jegede,” the campaign organisation pointed out.
It, however, rationalised the gale of Jegede posters’ destruction in Owo as a mark of desperation by the APC loyalists, who are jittery over the surging tide of an impending electoral defeat of their candidate.
“The truth is that, Jegede enjoys widespread acceptance among Owo people, against the expectation of the other candidate, whose only claim to public acceptance in Owo-for the past three and half years, is that he is a native of Owo.
“As for Jegede, he has promised the good people of Owo and other communities in Ondo State, the establishment of industries in cluster formation, across the state, to absorb many jobless youths.
“While the PDP is planning to provide jobs for these youths, the other party that is holding on to power is delighted in retaining them as political thugs and poster-tearing urchins,” the EJCO lamented.
It, as a result, called on the state’s Commissioner of Police to wade in, by investigating the Owo poster-destruction incident and bringing its perpetrators to book.