The Chief Press Secretary to Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, yesterday warned opposition elements in the state to stop playing politics with the insecurity situation in Ibarapa and Oke-Ogun parts of the state.
The governor’s aide maintained that most of the comments attributed to opposition elements on the security situation in the state missed the point due to pettiness, contempt and clear attempt to play to the gallery.
“Their utter attempt at showmanship and unpatriotic conduct portray them as babes and sucklings intervening on sensitive matters,” Adisa said.
According to him, if opposition elements were true lovers of the state, they should have used the occasion to demonstrate patriotism by empathising with the people of the state and coming up with their own ideas on how to address the situation.
He added that merely playing to the gallery only showcases them as ordinary politicians who do not think about the state but solely about the next election.
The statement by Adisa indicated that contrary to the picture being painted by the opposition, especially the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr. Sunday Dare, and some leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which suggested that the government did nothing on the Ibarapa security challenge, the Makinde administration took a number of steps.
Adisa wondered why a Sunday Dare could pass the buck on insecurity to Makinde when it was obvious that the lack of action and apparent dereliction of duty by the APC-led federal government brought the entire country to its knees, security-wise.
“Whereas Nigerians can count on their fingers the number of states ravaged by insecurity in 2015, today, none of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, is free of kidnapping, banditry, rape, and other crimes.
“It is unwise and completely unwarranted for Dare to fail to tell the world what positive thing he, as a member of the Federal Executive Council, has contributed to assist the state in its battles against insecurity.
“The state of affairs security-wise in virtually all geopolitical zones of the country has exposed the failure of Dare’s boss and that’s a reality no Nigerian can deny,” he said.
According to the governor’s media aide, Makinde had, at the height of the insecurity in Ibarapa, deployed Operation Burst, a state-backed security outfit comprising the Army, Nigeria Security, and Civil Defence Corps and the Police to Ibarapa in large numbers.
The governor had also caused to be deployed, men and officers of MOPOL 72, located strategically in Ago-Are in Oke-Ogun axis.
He added that the government followed-up that deployment with the mass deployment of the men of the Oyo State Security Network Agency, also known as Amotekun, to Ibarapa and Oke-Ogun axes to quench the rising insecurity.
