Former Osun commissioner escapes assassination attempt

A former Osun State Public Works and Transport Commissioner, Remi Omowaiye, narrowly escaped assassination at an Ilesa market on Friday.

The assailants fired sporadically and attacked Mr. Omowaiye with stones and bottles in a spare parts market in the Isita neighborhood of Ilesa. He was at the market handing out groceries to traders as gifts for the holiday season.

Mr. Omowaiye served as a commissioner under the administration of former Governor Gboyega Oyetola.

Witnesses said the attackers arrived at the market on motorbikes at 6:22 p.m. and began pelting the former commissioner and his aides with missiles before resorting to sporadic gunfire.

Confirming the incident to our reporter, Mr Omowaiye said some of his aides were stabbed and one of his security guards was seriously injured when a stone hit his face

“They injured one of my security officers, they pelted him with rocks, they stabbed some of my boys,” he said

Mr. Omowaiye said the thugs also damaged three vehicles in his convoy with bullets.

"We had about four to five vehicles in the convoy, but it was three vehicles that were inside the market. They smashed the windshield of the vehicle I entered and the vehicle behind me was riddled with bullets and the window was smashed,” he added.

He said the injured were still receiving treatment in a hospital when he spoke to our reporter on Saturday morning.

"The injured were taken to hospital yesterday, one of them lost so much blood."

Recounting how the incident happened, the former commissioner said he was at the market to share cows and rice with traders to rejoice with them for the festive season.

He said the name of All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Bola Tinubu was inscribed on the cows he took to market.

“It is my usual practice to give people things for Christmas and every festive period. In my usual practice, I would come with a cow and sacks of rice. So I went to Ibala,” a- he said.

“On these cows they wrote Jagaban Asiwaju 2023 so I gave them to Ibala. not to worry. I left there for Isita,” he said further.

"When I got to Isita, I gave them the cow and bags of rice. The next thing is we just saw people throwing stones and bottles, before you know it, we started to hear gunshots and at that point we just had to get in the vehicle,” he added.

"When I was trying to get into the vehicle, one of them took a very big piece of wood, he wanted to break it on my head but the president of the PDP of Ilesa West, Segun Olabode, arrested the guy. I was putting on a beanie, they took the beanie off."

Mr. Omowaiye said his security details would have engaged the attackers in a shootout, but he stopped them as he does not want any casualties recorded at the scene.

"I didn't want casualties, my security would have fired directly at those who were shooting but because I don't want casualties," he added.

The former commissioner who described the incident as an assassination attempt, said he escaped using his security details which guided him to his car despite them having been pelted with stones and sticks.

"It was a pure case of an assassin...