Wife of the Osun State Governor, Mrs. Titi Adeleke, on Monday led a protest to the Police Headquarters seeking an end to political violence in the state. The protesters, mostly women carrying placards with various inscriptions, blocked the entrance of the police headquarters to press home their demands. The wife of the governor said the peaceful protest was to demand a peaceful, free, and fair election on Saturday. She said, “We want peace; let there be peace. From what we heard, we learned that they will start picking our leaders up this week. Last week Friday, they picked up the Commissioner for Environment. This is not good enough. They should leave our people alone.” The Commissioner of Police deployed for the election, Samuel Erale Etaifo, assured the protesters of the police’s commitment to ensuring a credible election. He said, “I have utmost respect for women; if not for that, I would have directed my men to stop you. I have been here for the past two weeks; the IG was here because of the heightened tension in the state. For the first time in history, the IG directed the election CP to arrive three weeks prior to the election. If you notice, since I came, we have had relative peace in the state. “We cannot continue to tolerate what you have done today because it will not contribute to peace—it will cause tension again. Let us assume that you come out now and the other party comes out and both of you meet, what will happen? “We are going to go back and re-strategize to attend to all your demands. You are talking about killings; which killings have you seen? Why I am discussing this with you is because we don’t want tension before the election; we want peace. We cannot conduct an election in an insecure environment. “I have a mandate from the IG to come to the state to stabilize things, provide an enabling environment for all political actors to exercise their franchise, and create public confidence so everyone comes out to vote on election day. “If you are a manipulator of any election, that is even the worst. The IG and Nigeria will not forgive you—I will arrest you and take you to Abuja because this election is a federal election, and we must get it right. “I want to applaud you that this protest is peaceful, but I want to implore you to go back so that nothing happens to you. I will assign my men to escort you back to where you started the protest.”
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