According to him, some unscrupulous and criminally minded agents of mischief and anarchy perpetrated the crime during the weekend.
Mukaila Lamidi, better known as Auxiliary, the leader of the proscribed National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in Oyo State, has been charged for allegedly vandalising campaign billboards of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates in the state.
The Nigeria Police Force, Oyo State Command had vowed to hunt political thugs involved in destroying campaign billboards belonging to rival parties in the state.
The command’s spokesperson, SP Adewale Osifeso, had in a statement on Sunday, said the Oyo State Commissioner of Police, Adebowale Williams, ordered his deputy in charge of the State Criminal Investigation Department to commence full-scale investigations to uncover those behind the destruction of billboards in the State.
According to him, some unscrupulous and criminally minded agents of mischief and anarchy perpetrated the crime during the weekend.
The command had also warned political big wigs and other stakeholders in the state to put a check on their overzealous loyalists and supporters who were driven by the ideologies of enforcing dominance and territorialism through “needless aggression and violence.”
The command further appealed to parents, guardians and other opinion leaders to caution their wards against being used by desperate politicians as canon-fodder and destructive tools.
It also warned that anyone caught disturbing the peace or inciting violence through deeds or otherwise anywhere across the State shall be “decisively dealt with in accordance with relevant laws of the Federation”.
However, Auxiliary who was dragged to court by the Commissioner of Police on behalf of the government, was arraigned on a six-count charge bordering on willful destruction of billboards of APC candidates in Igbo-Ora and Ido area of Ibadan, according to the charge sheet.
APC leaders in Oyo State have repeatedly cried out over the activities of hoodlums believed to be working for Auxilliary.
Aside vandalising billboards, his supporters were accused of attacking APC chieftains at different times in Ibadan, the state capital.