The
crisis rocking Ekiti State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) took
another dimension as operatives of the State Security Service (SSS), arrested
Chief Remi Oguntuase, a strong supporter and close associate of the House of
Representatives member and governorship aspirant, Mr. Opeyemi Bamidele.
No
official reason was given for the arrest, but sources said it was another
strategy by Bamidele‘s known opponent to further attack him over the disrupted guber declaration programme
last Thursday.
Confirming
the arrest to newsmen in Ado Ekiti, a leader of Ekiti Bibire Coalition,
Bamidele’s political platform, who preferred anonymity, said six SSS operatives
on Monday stormed Oguntuase’s residence located at Onigari, GRA in Ado Ekiti at
about 11am and held no fewer than 10 occupants of the house hostage for about
forty minutes the operation lasted.
Oguntuase
had been attacked repeatedly before by some APC thugs, believed to be working
for Bamidele’s opponent in the party.
According
to Daily Sun source, the security operatives acted in a gestapo-like manner and
in the process wounded the security man at the entrance gate, broke the
pedestrian gate before gaining entry into the palatial building. The
source immediately seized the telephone sets of all the occupants, including
Oguntuase’s children and wife and ransacked all the rooms in the building.
According
to the source, Oguntuase was later whisked away in a white Hilux
Van alongside his wife to the SSS headquarters located along New Iyin Road in
the state capital.
The
source, however, confirmed that Oguntuase was later released at about
10p.m on Monday with an instruction that he should appear at the SSS
office yesterday for further questioning.
According
to him: “We were inside the house when the SSS operatives broke into the
building and ransacked all the rooms.
“They
could not find anything incriminating. They only saw cassettes of a Yoruba
Poet, named Ologundudu,” the source said.
When
asked whether the arrest was in connection with last Thursday’s rally, the
source said, “Chief Oguntuase told us that they didn’t ask him any question
about the rally. He said they only asked him about the cassettes they seized
from him.”
When
journalists visited the SSS office yesterday at about 2.15 pm, Chief Oguntuase,
who arrived the office at about 10am was still being held. Efforts by
journalists to see the state SSS Director, Mr. Samuel Tamuno to clarify the
matter was abortive, saying he could not attend to newsmen because they were
not invited to his office by him.
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Politics