By Paul Effiong, Abuja
Member of the House of Representatives, Bamidele Salam has condemned the alleged harassment, unlawful detention and public humiliation of a local government worker in Egbedore Local Government Area of Osun State, describing the involvement of the Nigeria Police Force as shameful, despicable and a gross violation of the constitution.
Reacting to a viral video and photographs circulating on social media, the lawmaker, who represents Ede North, Ede South, Egbedore and Ejigbo Federal Constituency, accused some politicians, allegedly acting with the backing of the police, of abusing power and undermining the rule of law in local government administration in the state.
In a statement signed by Salam and made available to journalists in Abuja yesterday, the lawmaker urged the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, Kayode Egbetokun,
to urgently conduct findings on the incident and bring the perpetrators to book.
The lawmaker urged the IGP to immediately withdraw all police officers from the secretariat, even as he described as illegal, their duties in local governments across Osun State.
According to the lawmaker, the victim, Taiwo Adebayo, who is an administrative staff of Egbedore Local Government, was lawfully on duty, following a directive by the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, for workers to resume afer an 11-month strike.
He informed that Adebayo was in possession of official files relating to the retirement process of some local government staff who were due to exit service and needed to complete documentation for the payment of their entitlements, stressing that the worker acted strictly under the instructions of his superiors.
He also alleged that the politician seen in the viral video supervising the detention, interrogation and humiliation of the staff was Issa Akinwale, who had earlier been sacked as local government chairman by judgments of the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal, but had continued to occupy the council secretariat with what he described as the active connivance of the police.
“The dehumanising treatment of citizen Adebayo by a politician in the presence of law enforcement agents, supervised by the Divisional Police Officer of Egbedore Local Government, is despicable, condemnable and outrightly unconstitutional,” Salam declared.
The federal lawmaker therefore demanded an immediate release of the staff as well as a formal apology by the Nigeria Police Force, and an end to what he termed the illegal capture of local government administration in Osun State by politicians of the All Progressives Congress (APC), allegedly aided by security operatives.
Salam also warned that the continued involvement of the police in partisan political activities at the local government level poses a serious threat to democracy, judicial authority and the fundamental rights of citizens, insisting that security agencies must be neutral and uphold court judgments rather than assist in their violation.
He recalled that judgements of both the Federal High Court in Osogbo and the Court of Appeal in Akure who had nullified the October 2022 local government elections for violating provisions of the Electoral Act and the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
The Court of Appeal, he explained, also upheld the election of new council chairmen conducted on February 22, 2025, lamenting that the Nigeria Police Force had continued to frustrate the enforcement of the subsisting court judgments, a situation he described as a dangerous affront to the rule of law in Nigeria.
