Posted by From TUNDE RAHEEM AKURE on
The high wave of insecurity that has gripped Ondo State since the last general elections took a dangerous dimension on Wednesday as the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to Governor Olusegun Agagu, Mr Tunde Awanebi, was brutally killed by unknown gunmen.
The high wave of insecurity that has gripped Ondo State since the last general elections took a dangerous dimension on Wednesday as the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to Governor Olusegun Agagu, Mr Tunde Awanebi, was brutally killed by unknown gunmen.
Awanebi, a retired Assistant Commissioner of Police, was brutally gunned down about 9pm in a supermarket at Ijoka area of Akure metropolis.
Daily Sun gathered that the CSO was gunned down by a five man gang whom sources said had trailed the deceased to the supermarket.
It was gathered that the gunmen trailed the late CSO's car with two motorcycles until he drove to the supermarket, where the five-man gang approached and greeted him.
The gunmen were reported to have congratulated the deceased on the re-election of the governor, a development which eye-witnesses said made the late CSO to wait and exchange pleasantries with his killers. As he turned back to enter the supermarket, the gunmen opened fire on him, an eye witness said.
The sporadic shooting, which Daily Sun gathered lasted for over 10 minutes, caused pandemonium in the area as people reportedly ran for dear lives.
After shooting the late CSO several times on the head, his assailants were said to have waited for minutes to ascertain that he was dead before taking their leave.
Awanebi , it was gathered, had been relieved of his appointment on Wednesday morning by Governor Agagu, although his sack had not been officially announced by the government before he was killed in the evening of same day.
Meanwhile, the Ondo State chapter of the Labour Party has washed its hands off insinuations that it was behind the spate of political crises in the state just as it denied any link with the murder of Awanebi.
In a release on Thursday, LP squarely put the blame of the series of violence in the state in the last four months at the doorstep of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
According to the party's Director of Press, Mr. Kolawole Olabisi, LP had, in the past four months, through the media and in a series of letters to security operatives in the State been alerting the people of plans by the PDP government, to unleash terror on the people of the state.
The party said that the killing of the former CSO was no doubt carried out by the PDP to cover up some of their nefarious activities at the last polls in which the deceased was an active participant.
"How come that the very day the CSO was dropped, he was shot dead? Who wants him dead but those who felt that he might spill the beans now that he had been unceremoniously eased out after being used for their dirty job? These are questions that the PDP must answer instead of pointing fingers at the wrong direction," Labour Party said.
"Indeed, the whole world knows who was using armed thugs to intimidate people of Ondo State in order not to come out on the election day. When these antics failed, the whole world saw wholesale stealing of ballot boxes and election materials by top government officials accompanied by heavily armed thugs who shot sporadically into the air to scare prospective voters away. These materials were later switched with already thumb-printed ones and taken to INEC offices.
We were all living witnesses to the hundreds of LP members who were shot and inflicted with grievous machete cuts by PDP thugs before election.
"If the government of Dr Olusegun Agagu has forgotten all these, the people of the state have not forgotten. So, instead of putting blames where there are none, he should find a way of exorcising all the monsters he had helped to create by ensuring that he rounds up all the weapons in their possession in the interest of the innocent people of Ondo State who he swore to serve and protect."