BY GBENGA OLARINOYE
OSOGBO — Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State, yesterday,  inaugurated the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that would investigate all human right abuses in the state in the last eight years with the resolve that the commission was not targeted at any particular person or group of persons or a witch-hunt.

Speaking at the inauguration, Governor Aregbesola charged the seven-member committee not to be distracted in the discharge of its duties but to be open minded and humane during the period of its exercise.

The Governor who noted that it was difficult to forget quickly how his administration came into being through a court of appeal judgment in Ibadan which nullified the election of Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, stressed that all cases of injustices allegedly perpetrated by the former administration should be properly investigated.

His words : “We should not for this reason forget how we got here. We did not just arrive at this junction. There was an antecedent of tears, sorrow and blood. The wounds inflicted are deep; the scars are vivid and permanently disfiguring. Some are still painful.

The painful reality we must reconcile with therefore is that our today was determined by our past. If we do not do anything about it, it is going to gobble the future as well. This is the challenge we have on our hand. Election, that necessary condition for democratic participation, became harbinger of death, misery and permanent incapacitation for many as choices were cancelled and wrong persons imposed arbitrarily.

Protests were visited with repression as the security agencies were unleashed on peaceful protesters on the streets, killing, maiming and hounding them. Subsequently, people were being rounded up in the comfort of their homes and put in illegal detention on spurious charges. Serial abuse of human rights became routine. It is a past for which we, and any decent people, should be ashamed of, but which we must confront soberly and boldly and which we must address. The land must be cleansed and healing must be brought to our people. There must be genuine reconciliation.”