Osun protesters clash with Police over vehicle seizure
By Ismail Azeez, Osogbo
A youth group under the aegis of Take It Back Movement, Osun State on Wednesday accused the Police of attempting to stop peaceful protest by seizing their vehicle.
Speaking at the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) Correspondent Chapel, the leader of the movement, Oguntola Sunday, expressed dissatisfaction over the illegal seizure of their vehicle despite the peaceful protest.
Sunday said that the protest would continue until the cries of the masses are heard and the hardship inflicted on the masses by Tinubu’s administration is eradicated.
“The Nigerian Police Force came in their numbers and mobilised that we cannot hold a protest, they even had to hijack the vehicle that we rented to be our sound including our speakers, the DJ to work for us today and they hijacked the vehicle saying they cannot work for us that because we did not inform them about the protest before.
“We made it categorically clear to them that we do not need the permission of the Nigerian Police Force to hold a peaceful protest and assembly so we told them categorically that if you are hijacking our vehicle saying that we cannot hold a protest that you cannot hijack our vehicle.” he said.
“We cannot guarantee how long, for as long as Tinubu continues to suffer the masses we are going to be in the streets. If it is going to take him one year to listen to us, we are going to be on the streets. If it is going to take 10 years, we are still going to be on the streets.
“Our convergence point is going to be Freedom Park. We are going to be there as early as 7am to continue our protest and we are going to be marching from Freedom Park to Olaiya daily. That’s our movement and if there is a need for change we’ll communicate,” he stated.
Reacting, the State Command’s acting Police Public Relation Officer, ASP Giwa-alade Emmanuel, said that the Take It Back Movement only requested for October 1st to hold a peaceful protest through their national body.
Emmanuel said, “The national body of the movement wrote a letter to Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun involving him about their protest that was scheduled for October and its end October 1st written by their legal representative disseminated information across all commissioners.”
He said that their action broke out of the national body agreement with the police authority.
The PPRO, who said he could not confirm if the vehicle of the protesters were seized by the police, hinted that “if truly their vehicle is seized, I can assure you that it will be released to them.”
