Minister, Obasanjo's aide, escape attack in Ondo
From Niyi Bello (Akure)
MINISTER of Housing and Urban Development, Mrs. Mobolaji Osomo, and a presidential aide, Prince Olu Mafo, narrowly escaped being lynched by an irate mob at the weekend at Igbokoda, headquarters of the volatile oil producing Ilaje Local Council of Ondo State.
The minister, who arrived at the Igbokoda Federal Fishery Terminal, venue of a meeting convened by Mafo to deliberate on how the statutory 13 per cent oil derivation fund accruing to the council since 1999 was expended, walked into an angry crowd that had gathered at the gate of the complex situated on the town's main road.
Initially mistaking the excitement of the crowd as a friendly posture, the minister, who had been waving to the people from the windows of her jeep, was almost attacked as she stepped down from the vehicle by the hostile mob, who chanted war songs and called her unprintable names.
But for her security details and about 100 armed anti-riot and regular policemen already deployed at the venue, the minister would have been physically assaulted.
The State Police Commissioner, acting on an intelligence report, had provided a security ring around her convoy.
The Guardian gathered that hundreds of Ilaje residents from Igbokoda as well as others from far-flung riverine communities had laid siege as early as 7 a.m. on Saturday at the terminal to prevent the meeting from being held.
Although Mrs. Osomo told the police to leave the venue after dispersing the crowd, insisting on the meeting being held as scheduled, a senior police officer, who was identified as the head of Ondo Area Command, advised the minister to leave the venue.
Osomo's convoy was later escorted to the nearby police station for protection, as anti-riot policemen shot into the air to disperse the crowd. Unidentified vehicles and commuters were prevented from passing through the area.
Several canisters of tear-gas were also fired by the police to dislodge the mob, which had started to re-group in front of the local council secretariat, some metres away from the venue of the meeting.
During the crowd's encounter with the police which lasted for about two hours, social and business activities in the town, which is the main link between the hinterland and the riverine area, were halted as traders and other businessmen hurriedly closed their shops and offices for fear of being injured in the clash.
The Guardian gathered however, that the Igbokoda meeting was disrupted by the mob because the conveners allegedly did not follow the process of calling such a meeting.
According to the Ondo State Liason Officer in Abuja, Mr. Ola Mafo, a younger brother to the convener of the meeting, "those who organised the aborted meeting have no authority to do so."
His words: "Ilaje are a very disciplined people and we do things in accordance with laid-down guidelines. Such meeting should have been called by our traditional leaders or our recognised political leaders.
"Any meeting that is being called to discuss the development of our land should have in attendance all our political leaders and traditional rulers and not a section of the political elite who are not even based here."
Also speaking to The Guardian, chairman of the Ilaje Local Council, Adebambo Odoro, said that as the Chief Security Officer of the council, he ought to have been briefed about the meeting.
"I was not informed about the meeting. I came back from Abuja only yesterday to discover that the police had taken steps to prevent a breakdown of law and order."
"This is a politically volatile environment and the best that should be done in this circumstance is to prevent the meeting from being held because, the people are negatively charged over some of our leaders," he said.
The commissioner representing the state on the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Chief Olusola Oke, who said he came to Igbokoda to attend the meeting, urged all stakeholders in Ilaje to allow peace to reign.
He said: "I came to attend the meeting but met this situation. Although the meeting was not convened through the proper channel, we should all join hands to allow the development now coming to our communities to be sustained."
The convener, Mafo, who is a Special Assistant to President Olusegun Obasanjo on National Assembly Matters, said that those who did not want the truth to be told aborted the meeting.
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