’Yinka ADETUNJI
Some women at Oja’jagun in Ogbomoso have taken to the streets to protest the death of a two year-old girl who was allegedly killed by a car in the campaign train of Engineer Seyi Makinde, Oyo state governor, who led stalwarts of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to Oja’gbo in Ogbomoso today to round off the party’s campaign towards the Saturday, May 22 local government election in the state.
The women numbering about fifty (50) trooped to the streets enroute Owode Divisional Police, to express their displeasure over the manner the little girl was killed after just returning from school and the subsequent violence unleashed on the people of the area by suspected thugs of the ruling party following which the police allegedly arrested innocent people and locked them up.
According to eye witnesses, the little girl who was said to have started school just this week Monday was giggling and holding a pencil as she showed her mother her books pertaining to what she learned in school today, when the car, a Toyota Matrix, veered off the road in high speed, jumped the culvert by the late Baba Abina’s residence and rammed into the shop where the child, her mother and grandmother were seated.
Mrs. Fausat Abdulazeez, a trader in the market, who said she is a step-grandmother to the deceased little girl, speaking with ogbomosoinsightonline.com, lamented the accident revealing that the brain of the little girl spilled into the ground after being mauled by the vehicle.
Mrs. Abdulazeez described the incident as tragic and an undeserved treatment from Governor Makinde’s thugs, stressing, “After the incident, PDP’s thugs descended on the people and started beating everybody in sight, the whole area thus erupting in pandemonium. Unfortunately again, the police only arrested innocent people, that is why we came out to protest. Even the child’s grandmother is in the hospital receiving treatment over injuries sustained in the accident.”
Another victim, Lekan Ajagbe, a commercial motorcyclist who also spoke with ogbomosoinsightonline.com at Owode Police Station, informed that he was carrying a passenger when he ran into the thugs, saying he was attacked by the thugs with dangerous weapons.
Ajagbe revealed that it was God that saved him, showing off his damaged motorcycle which he said he was using to meet ends meet. He added that he didn’t even know the fate of his passenger.
Some other men with machete cuts were seen at Isale-Ora area brandishing machetes and raining curses on the attackers.
The women who were prevented from gaining entry into the station to demand the release of the people they posited were wrongly arrested were heard chanting, “Makinde’s thugs had killed our child, release our people.”
However, a police source said the arrested persons were those attempting to burn the car that killed the child but that the matter would be looked into. It was also stated that the killers of the child would be prosecuted.
Meanwhile, it is high time politicians desisted from going about with thugs as it is the stock-in-trade of these hoodlums to drive dangerously and unleash violence and terror on innocent members of the public. Moreover, in the forthcoming local government election, PDP’s main rival, All Progressives Congress (APC) is not contesting, so, why the accompaniment with violent thugs bearing weapons in campaigns!
In the meantime, it is being said that the car involved in the accident was not part of the vehicles in the campaign train of the PDP.
