From John Dike, Osogbo 

Osun State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has vowed to challenge the outcome of the Presidential and National Assembly elections held in the state on Saturday.

The party leadership lamented what it called spate of violence that characterised the elections in the state.

The Nigerian Monitor reports that there were reported pockets of violence witnessed in some parts of the state during the voting process.

Addressing a press conference in Osogbo, the state Chairman of APC, Tajudeen Lawal, disclosed that the party will be challenging the outcome of the elections.

The APC chairman alleged that many people were killed while others were injured during the election, adding that despite efforts and reports to the police and other security agencies, the perpetrators of the heinous crime were neither arrested nor prosecuted.

He alleged that two notorious thugs were nabbed by the police who repealed some attacks carried out by hoodlums believed to be loyal to the ruling party in the state

“We want to state here expressly that our party, the APC, was denied the level playing ground to canvass for votes before the elections, as it is on record that so many of our members were either killed, maimed, attacked or run out of their abodes by the PDP hoodlums.

“Many of our members were needlessly and cruely dispatched to the great beyond by the notorious and daredevil PDP thugs who were ubiquitous and operating unhindered across the state before and during the elections,” he alleged.

Lawal hinted that hoodlums who were large in number, also attacked the country home of the immediate past governor, Mr Adegboyega Oyetola, in Iragbiji, where several polling units were raided as already thump-printed ballot boxes were carted away by the miscreants.

He stated that the political hoodlums armed with guns, cutlasses, axes and other dangerous weapons ransacked the strong holds of the opposition APC across the state.

Lawal said: “The hoodlums who got to Idi-Ogungun polling unit in Iragbiji at 3:04pm when the sorting and counting of votes were ongoing, were seen shooting sporadically into the air to scare the electorate as officials of the INEC narrowly escaped death by the whiskers.

He alleged that the attackers who arrived the affected polling units in full force sent the entire community into panic as the atmosphere was rented with gunshots before they eventually snatched the ballot boxes during their onslaught at Idi Ogungun, an outskirts of Iragbiji, Boripe Local Government Council Area of the state and later moved to Eleesun and Odebudo, two of the popular communities in the council, all of which are APC strongholds.

“The miscreants successfully ransacked the first polling unit after which they swiftly moved to the next polling unit which is a close by distance where another ballot boxes were carted away.

“Information has it that a team of police came to repel the attacks and eventually got two of the hoodlums apprehended. We therefore, call for the prosecution of the arrested thugs by the Police.

“The most annoying thing is that these PDP political thugs enjoy the shield of the policemen who, oftentimes, guarded them whenever the hoodlums were perpetrating their attacks on the innocent people whose only sin before them was their membership of the APC,” he stated.