Wale Akinterinwa, a former Commissioner for Finance in Ondo State has accused the state governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, of sending thugs to attack President Bola Tinubu’s supporters.
Akinterinwa, who is a governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), claimed that the hoodlums attacked supporters who came to welcome Tinubu to the state.
Recall that Tinubu had embarked on an official visit to Ondo State on Wednesday.
However, Akinterinwa claimed that those who came out to welcome the president were attacked by thugs sponsored by Aiyedatiwa.
The former commissioner, who spoke in a statement by the spokesman of his Campaign Structure, Segun Ajiboye, decried what he called the return of thuggery to the political space in the State.
According to him, “The thugs, fully loaded in unmarked vehicles, did not in any way hide their devilish intentions, as they went round major streets of Akure, destroying the bill boards of the other gubernatorial aspirants of the All Progressives Congress.
“The thugs fully armed with different types of guns, shot sporadically into the air to create fears in the people.
“Expectedly, thousands of supporters of the APC who had prepared to receive the president ran helter-skelter for dear lives.
“The ugly incident was coming barely 24 hours after the Wale Akinterinwa Campaign Structure raised the alarm about the dastardly activities by certain element acting for and on behalf of Lucky Orimisan Ayedatiwa to prevent members of the APC and leaders who are not in his camp to receive Mr President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR during his visit to Akure.
“Today’s action by the thugs acting on the directives of Mr Governor is most undemocratic, disrespectful, unreasonable and disdainful attempt by any Chief executive in the anals of democracy in Nigeria.
“This is a sad reminder of the wicked old days in the politics of our dear state. It marks an avoidable return to the dark days of hooligans and political bandits in Ondo state.”
But Chief Press Secretary to Governor Aiyedatiwa, Ebenezer Adeniyan, said that nobody associated with the Governor would destroy billboards or attack innocent citizens.
“That is not true. I do not know where they got the information from,”
he said.
