The governor Dapo Abiodun-led administration has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ogun State of sponsoring the violent protest that tore through Sagamu town on Monday. The PDP has refuted these claims.
Yesterday, youths protesting the lack of new naira notes went on the rampage, torching banks and removing the confusing Sagamu Local Government legislative building.
Recall that Abiodun’s chief press secretary, Kunle Somorin, charged that the PDP was behind the crisis’ orchestration.
Reacting, the Ogun PDP blamed the Sagamu riot on a directive by Gov Abiodun that residents should continue to spend the old naira notes despite an order by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and President Muhammadu Buhari that the old N500 and N1000 notes are no more legal tenders.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, the PDP State Secretary, Sunday Solarin, dismissed the allegations, saying the refusal of commercial banks to take the old notes from residents despite the governor’s directive might have caused the mayhem.
“Having given the people the old notes and knowing fully well that it will no longer be legal tender and the people went to the bank to see if they could give this money back to the banks and it was blatantly refused, I want to believe that it is the refusal if the banks to collect this money that triggered the riot we witnessed in Sagamu yesterday,” Solarin said.
He maintained that the governor ought to have put in place, measures to forestall the Sagamu riot, having recorded similar attacks in Abeokuta, three weeks ago.
The party scribe denied PDP’s involvement in the riot, saying “we have no records of masterminding violence.”
He urged people to be calm in the face of troubled times, saying there is light at the end of the tunnel.