Men suspected to be political thugs stormed the Kwara State Government House yestwrday, Dec. 29, to disperse women protesting peacefully over the spate of kidnappings in Ifelodun Local Council of the state.
The women, armed with placards, descended on the seat of power on Ahmadu Bello Way, Ilorin, to plead with the governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, to do more to save the Oke-Ode community from bandits.
However, amid their protest, more than 30 men, armed with horse whips, canes, rubber, wire and other weapons, suddenly alighted from an unmarked vehicle and began beating the women.
This sent the protesters running in different direction, with some falling into the gutters.
The thugs were also filmed forcefully collecting their placards as they assaulted them.
Kwara indigenes have gone on different platforms to condemn the thug attack. Some accused the state government of working with thugs.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state also condemned what it described as “the brutal, inhumane, and utterly disgraceful” assault unleashed on helpless women and children at the peaceful protest.
They said: “These women—mostly aged mothers, wives of kidnapped victims, and their children from Oke Ode, Agbeku, Babanla, Adanla and other communities in Ifelodun Local Council—came to Kwara State Government House as a last resort.
They came crying, pleading, and begging the government to intervene in securing the release of their loved ones who have been held hostage by bandits for weeks, with outrageous ransom demands running into tens of millions of naira.
“The Kwara PDP considers videos circulating in the public space, which show these women lamenting in Yoruba how their husbands were kidnapped over a month ago, how entire communities have been deserted, and how families have sold all they own and exhausted all options.”
The party’s state publicity secretary, Olusegun Olusola Adewara, lamented that “instead of compassion, reassurance, or even basic engagement, these traumatised citizens were met with violence.
“It is unacceptable that thugs mercilessly descended on these peaceful protesters with canes and other weapons, beating, stripping, and forcefully dispersing them in full public view.”
Watch video below.
