ACN alleges threat to Aregbesola’s life

By Our Reporter 

  

Governor Rauf Aregbesola

Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s life is under threat, his party, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), said yesterday.

The party raised the alarm in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed

According to the statement, the “credible threat to Aregbesola’s life is within the context of a dastardly plot being engineered by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to destabilise the Southwest and soften the ground for the PDP ahead of the 2015 general elections”.

According to the ACN, Osun State is being targeted in the pilot scheme “of this act of desperation by the PDP because it is hell bent on causing chaos in the region.”

The statement reads: “The architects of this plot believe that unless the PDP destabilises the Southwest and gets rid of the man they see as an implacable foe of the party (PDP), the President’s putative plan to run for re-election in 2015 will be in jeopardy, especially as they are afraid - for reasons best known to them - that the President will not get the backing of the Northwest and the Northeast in his quest for re-election.

 “The first step in the dastardly plot is the fabrication of an ‘intelligence report’ alleging that Aregbesola is nursing a secessionist plan; that he now plays Osun’s anthem in place of the national anthem; that he has since dispensed with the services of the SSS operatives attached to him and replaced them with Islamic extremists called ‘Tawun’; that he has officially changed the uniforms of secondary schools in Osun, made the wearing of hijab compulsory for female students and enforces that through Islamic militants, and that he has sent militants for revolutionary training in Cuba.

“The cooked intelligence report concluded that all legal and constitutional means must be used to stop him. Reading between lines, the measures being advocated in the report could only be impeachment (this is impossible, considering the clean sweep of the PDP’s footsteps in the state), creation of chaos and anarchy to pave the way for the imposition of a state of emergency in the state, or the final solution, which is physical elimination,” it said.

The ACN said it listed physical elimination because of the inexplicable disappearing acts involving some security agents attached to the governor in recent times, and the growing suspicious activity of some security agencies in the state.

The party warned the plotters to desist from any act that will further threaten the tenuous peace and security in the country, reminding them to learn from history.

The party said: “There is no iota of truth in the allegations detailed in the so-called intelligence report engineered by the PDP. No SSS operative has been sent packing and the governor neither has the intention nor possesses the authority to do so; no private militia is being trained anywhere, except in the warped minds of the PDP desperadoes; and no uniform change or hijab-wearing law has been passed in the state.

“We hope that the plotters remember that since the First Republic, all attempts to destabilise the Southwest have ended with dire consequences for the nation. Also, such acts have always been motivated by the desperation to win federal elections. The ACN will, therefore, like to put the PDP and its collaborators on notice that it (ACN) will guard its mandate in Osun and other states jealously against political hawks. The so-called intelligence report should be shredded and packed in a dust bin where it belongs because it is nothing but the PDP master-plan to destabilise Osun State, in particular, and the Southwest region, in general.

“We also warn the security and intelligence agencies to be independent and not to allow themselves to be used for political gains. They should put national interest above partisan or sectional interest, and remember that the PDP is not synonymous with the Nigerian nation.

“It is just a bull in a China shop that will soon be ejected by the peoples’ votes.”

SOURCE: The Nation, 12 April 2012. http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/