Police disrupt Ogun governor’s event with tear gas

 

By Kehinde Akinyemi

Hell was let loose Tuesday in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, as a careless canister of tear-gas released by a member of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) caused a stampede among the mammoth crowd at the inauguration of boards of statutory boards.

Consequently, the crowd that thronged the Oba Complex to witness the inauguration ceremony started running for safety as the tear gas smoke became unbearable.

According to an eyewitness, the purported missing of a cell phone and the sum of Fifty Thousand Naira belonging to the Permanent Secretary in the Bureau of Local Government Pensions, Mr. Tokunbo Owotomo, caused the act by the police officer. The alleged theft, it was gathered, infuriated the policemen at the entrance who responded by spraying tear gas on the surging crowd.

Reacting to the development, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Taxation, Mr Akin Akinlade, who rushed out from the hall with swollen eyeballs, condemned the action of the police saying, “these policemen are too brutal, they did not even mind the calibre and number of people inside the hall before spraying us with teargas all in the guise of maintaining law and order.”

DAILY TRUST