Yesterday, December 29, women peacefully protesting the wave of k!•dnappings in the state’s Ifelodun Local Council were dispersed by men suspected of being political thu•gs who stormed the Kwara State Government House.
Armed with signs, the women gathered at the governor’s office on Ahmadu Bello Way in Ilorin to beg AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to take further action to protect the Oke-Ode community from bandits.
But in the middle of their protest, over thirty men abruptly got out of an unmarked car and started b£@•ting the women with horse whips, canes, rubber, wire, and other weapons.
This sent the protesters running in different direction, with some falling into the gutters.
The thugs were also filmed forcefully collecting their placards as they a$$.aulted them.
Kwara indigenes have gone on different platforms to condemn the thug att@.ck. Some accused the state government of working with thugs.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state also condemned what it described as “the b√utal, inhumane, and utterly disgraceful” a$$ault unleashed on helpless women and children at the peaceful protest.
They said: “These women—mostly aged mothers, wives of k!.dnapped victims, and their children from Oke Ode, Agbeku, Babanla, Adanla and other communities in Ifelodun Local Council—came to Kwara State Government House as a last resort.
They came crying, pleading, and begging the government to intervene in securing the release of their loved ones who have been held hostage by b@πdits for weeks, with outrageous ransom demands running into tens of millions of naira.
“The Kwara PDP considers videos circulating in the public space, which show these women lamenting in Yoruba how their husbands were k!.dnapped over a month ago, how entire communities have been deserted, and how families have sold all they own and exhausted all options.”
The party’s state publicity secretary, Olusegun Olusola Adewara, lamented that “instead of compassion, reassurance, or even basic engagement, these traumatised citizens were met with violence.
“It is unacceptable that thugs mercilessly descended on these peaceful protesters with canes and other weapons, b£@ting, stripping, and forcefully dispersing them in full public view.”