Ahead of the 2023 governorship poll in Oyo State, unfolding events have shown that the era of political thuggery and hooliganism might return if all hands are not on deck to tackle the menace headlong.

The fear, as gathered, stemmed from the political violence that preceded the 1983, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 governorship polls in the state, with their attendant loss of lives and destruction of multimillion naira property. In the midst of this fear, Commissioner of Police in the state, Adebowale Williams, will on Monday November 28 host the 18 political parties and their candidates, as well as some elder statesmen at the Eleyele Police Headquarters in Ibadan, for signing of peace accord towards curbing unruly political tendencies before, during and after the general elections.

But in the past few weeks, the three adjudged leading political parties in the state – Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All Progressives Congress (APC) and Accord, have engaged in verbal war.

Oyo North senatorial candidate of the Accord Party, Shina Peller, raised the alarm that he escaped assassination from hoodlums on Sunday May 29, 2022 on his way from Ibadan to Oke-Ogun. He pointed fingers at the APC. But APC denied the allegation.

In the first week of October, 2022, the APC, led by its governorship candidate in the state, Senator Teslim Folarin, held a mega rally in Ibadan for the party’s presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. The party, however, raised the alarm that some thugs, allegedly loyal to PDP attacked participants. But the police in the state said the following day that the incident that led to the shooting of one person did not have anything to do with the rally. He was said to be a victim of armed robbery, and he survived the incident.

In the second week of November, the campaign train of the 2023 governorship candidate of Accord Party in the state, Adebayo Adelabu, a retired deputy governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), was violently attacked in Tede in Oke-Ogun zone of the pace setter state. (Saturday Sun)

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