Women protesting peacefully in front of Kwara State Government House against prevalence of kidnaps in Ifelodun Local Council of Kwara State have come under attack of suspected thugs.
The incident happened on Monday as the protesters carried placards that contained words of appeal to Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to arrest the activities of kidnap in Oke-Ode community in the state.
The protest turned ugly when more than 30 hoodlums stormed the spot in an unmarked vehicle, armed with horse whips, canes, rubber, wire and other weapons, to unleash terror on the protesters.
The moment was captured on video, and in it, the women are seen fleeing for safety with some falling into gutter and suffered varying degrees of injuries.
In response to the attack, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, via a statement the party’s state publicity secretary, Olusegun Olusola Adewara issued described it as “brutal, inhumane, and utterly disgraceful.”
The statement read in part, “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 also charged the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to immediately identify, investigate and prosecute all police officers who supervised or allowed the assault to take place, stressing that “justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done”.
“We also demand the immediate arrest and prosecution of all government-linked thugs who carried out this attack on peaceful protesters. No society that claims to be civilised should tolerate such lawlessness under the guise of governance.
“Furthermore, the Kwara PDP calls on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, relevant national authorities and international human rights institutions to urgently look into this disturbing incident and the broader failure of the AbdulRahman-led Kwara State Government to protect its citizens from banditry, kidnapping and state-sponsored intimidation,” it concluded.
