Osun Election: Drunk Security Operatives Arrested Me, Others-Lai Mohammed

National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Alhaji
Lai Mohammed, has alleged that Military men and officials of the
Department of State Security, DSS, who arrested him and two others were
“apparently drunk.”

Mohammed, Sunday Dare, Media Aide to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Afolabi Salisu,
Seputy Chief of Staff to Gov. Ibikunle Amosun were arrested by security
agents in Osun State on Friday night. They have all been released.

The Spokesman for the APC said his Gestapo Style arrest by hooded security
agents in Osogbo on Friday night, for no reason beyond the fact that he
belongs to the opposition, shows the level of illegality, lawlessness,
anarchy and intolerance to which Nigeria has descended under the watch of
President Goodluck Jonathan.

In a statement he issued in Osogbo on Saturday, shortly after he was
released, Alhaji Mohammed said he was arrested along with Mr. Sunday Dare,
the Media Aide to APC National Leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and Mr.
Afolabi Salisu, Deputy Chief of Staff to Gov. Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun
State.

”We were being driven to the Government House when we were stopped at a
military check point by men in military and DSS uniforms, all hooded and
armed to the teeth with AK-47 assault rifles, pistols and other weapons.
Since there was no curfew in Osun state and people were moving around
freely, we felt it was a routine check.

”Suddenly, the men, some of them apparently drunk, ordered us out of the
car, took our phones, pointed their assault rifles at our heads and said
‘you are under arrest’. They herded us into their bus like animals and
drove away. There is no doubt that they knew who we are because I
introduced myself!

”From our encounter with our tormentors, there is also no doubt that these
were not just soldiers and DSS officials, there were also ex-militants and
thugs, all clad in military and DSS uniforms but apparently lacking in any
training! We also witnessed how men in military and DSS uniform fired
their guns at the gate leading to the residence of Senator Isiaka Adeleke
to force it open!

”We asked them why we were being arrested, but they ignored our question
as they drove for close to one hour before veering into a compound that
turned out to be the offices of the DSS. There, we met people who had been
previously arrested and stripped of their clothing, many of them bloodied
from the beatings to which they must have been subjected.

”We were herded to one side as our tormentors marched around triumphantly,
in what could well have been a scene from the Ukraine! We were waiting for
our turn to be stripped of our apparels and taken along with those who
were arrested earlier to the DSS cells when a man who is apparently a
senior DSS official intervened and ordered our release. The men who
arrested us, apparently unhappy at the order to set us free, rejected the
order, until the man asserted his authority and even accompanied us to
where we were arrested from.

”Back there, we discovered that our driver has been badly beaten and even
robbed of his personal belongings by the same security agents being paid
by the taxpayers to protect the citizens, whose ranks have now been
swelled, willingly, by thugs and ex-militants, armed and dressed in
official uniforms by the PDP and sanctioned by the Jonathan-led Federal
Government!

”This arrest is not about Lai Mohammed, Sunday Dare or Afolabi Salisu,
whoever we may be, but about the constitutionally-guaranteed rights of
Nigerians, ordinary Nigerians, to move around freely, associate with any
party of their choice and express their opinions without being molested or
arrested.

”The way and manner we were harassed, arrested and dehumanized on Friday
night show that Nigerian citizens can no longer be sure that the security
agents they encounter on the roads or anywhere else are well-trained and
highly-disciplined men and women in the military, police, DSS and others
that we used to know. What we have now are Jonathan’s soldiers, policemen
and DSS officials who have since stopped working for the nation but are
now the enforcement arm of the PDP.

”As we write this, APC leaders and members are still being harassed and
arrested across Osun State. We have just received reports that our members
were arrested in Ifelodun Local Government Ward 10,.Atakumosa East Local
Government and Ife East Local Government, Okerewe Wards 2 and 3. Over all
we have ninety-seven leaders of our party in detention and the arrest has
not stopped. This cannot be right.

”Our party, the APC, has no doubt whatsoever that the depravity being
exhibited under President Jonathan’s watch, in the name of politics, has
his imprimatur. We have no doubt that elections, which should be a
celebration of democracy, have now been turned to war because of the
desperation of President Jonathan to win re-election at all costs. We have
no doubt that the anarchic Minister of State for Defence and Minister of
Police Affairs, who are leading the ”troops” in Osun as they did in Ekiti,
are taking their cue from President Jonathan.

”If those Ministers can move around freely in Osun and elsewhere, why
can’t other Nigerians, irrespective of the party they belong to? If a PDP
hireling like Chris Uba can be put in the command of 50 soldiers of the
Nigerian Army, why should anyone still be under any illusion that the
Nigerian Army is still serving the nation? Where else in the world is a
thug commanding disciplined forces?

”We, Lai Mohammed, Sunday Dare and Afolabi Salisu, are just fortunate to
be alive. The guns pointed at our heads by drunken armed men could have
gone off! Since our arrest took place in the dark, we could have been
driven to an unknown destination and shot dead! This is a dangerous time
for Nigeria and her democracy. Irrespective of the outcome of the Osun
election, democracy has been dealt a near-mortal blow. 73,000 ‘security
agents’, including the military, police, DSS, Civil Defence, ex-militants,
thugs and murderers, deployed to police election in just one state? There
is no better indication that we are in a militarized democracy.

”Again, we call on President Jonathan to stop deceiving the world. In one
breath, this President says he is committed to credible elections and that
his political ambition is not worth the life of any Nigerian. In another,
he sanctions state-sponsored harassment, intimidation and even killing of
ordinary Nigerians by security forces that are now the enforcement arm of
the ruling party, all in the name of politics.

”He desecrates national institutions by willfully using them against the
opposition. This is not the democracy that many of our compatriots fought
and died for. This is not the Nigeria that was envisaged by our past
heroes. It is time for all concerned to step in and stop President
Jonathan before he brings the country crashing down on our heads,” APC
said