Labour Party Speaks After The Assassination Attempt On Its Osun Gubernatorial Candidate

Yusuff Lasun, the Labour Party’s gubernatorial candidate for Osun State on Saturday, was allegedly the target of an assassination attempt.

The Labour Party said that during the early hours of Monday, July 11, 2022, commando-style thugs wearing police uniforms attempted to kill the party’s gubernatorial candidate.

They stated that bullets were repeatedly fired at his home in Ilobu, Osun State, but were driven back by diligent police officers and other security personnel assigned to him.

Lasun is believed to have fled his home, although, no one was hurt during the incident.

Abayomi Arabambi, the party’s national publicity secretary, said in a statement on Monday that the public believed the attack was sparked by Yusuf Lasun’s excellent and intensely incisive performance at the Channel’s TV governorship debate.

Arabambi stated that Lasun had “out-performed and clearly exposed the lack of requisite capacity and knowledge of the Governor of the State, Gboyega Oyetola, who is also the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).”

Over a hundred armed criminals in police uniforms invaded Lasun’s home at midnight, according to Arabambi.

He said, “It is strongly believed that the intention is to assassinate the candidate.”

Arabambi claimed that the attackers fired continuously for more than an hour at midnight but were stopped by the quick action of the police, other security personnel, and members of the community.

He said, “It is a shame that in 2022, the APC had once again brought back the forgotten era of harassment and intimidation of the opposition, still it is better understood by the APC that in today’s Nigeria, the people will stoutly resist any and all kinds of political intimidation and harassment of the opposition political parties.

“It must be loudly said and must be clearly noted by all Nigerians that the APC government deliberately and consciously tried through the illegal use of the armed thugs dressed in police uniform to incapacitate our candidate in the pursuit of an electoral campaign, thinking by that, he could be cowed and thus be rendered unable to participate fully and effectively in the election to pave the way for the APC candidate.”

The Labour Party, he said, has decided to save Osun State and has declared that there will be “no going back” with Yusuf Lasun running for office.

“It is very sad and disheartening to find that the only option left for APC is to resort to intimidation.

“The APC truly feels out-matched in the political space of Osun State and the massive support received by the LP and its governorship candidate, Rt Hon Yusuf Lasun, made it to lose focus. But it is not enough to employ crude and barbaric means to illegal reaction.

“LP honestly and sincerely hope that Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate and a cousin to Oyetola, will not be falsely inspired to walk the path of intimidation, using government power towards the 2023 presidential election. We say this because it is the brilliant and glorious political performance of Hon Yusuf Lasun in Osun State that has kept the LP growing; coupled with the electoral value that Peter Obi, the active presidential candidate of the LP is duplicating on a very much larger scale at the national level.

“For the avoidance of any and all kinds of doubts, all forms of brigandage and unlawful forms of crude politics will be resisted strongly through all usable lawful means in all States and at the national level.

“Labour Party will use all lawful ways and means to post a win roundly seen as expected by the barometer of public opinion in the 2023 Osun State election with a very massive margin and we urge the Inspector General of police to immediately launch a manhunt for these criminal elements and should also beam his searchlight on all the APC campaign council members, including the Governor, for possible arm stockpiling.

“Saturday is around the corner when the governorship election will be held. LP enjoins and urges all the patriotic Nigerians to closely watch the political space of Osun State and see how things evolve. It is our duty to collectively reject the crude and ancient politics of harassment and intimidation in this country.”