BY OLA AJAYI, IBADAN

The governor of Oyo State, Sen. Abiola Ajimobi, has taken exception to insinuations and outright accusation in some newspaper reports(not Vanguard) that he ordered policemen to “brutalize” protesting students of The Polytechnic, Ibadan, who staged a protest to the Governor’s Office on his first day of resumption.

This came as the students apologized to the governor for the protest they staged on Tuesday. They shut the entrances of thee secretariat when the governor was having an interfaith prayer marking his assumption of office.

In a statement from the Governor’s Office, the governor maintained that none of the protesting students was either molested or brutalized, either at his instance or that of his security aides.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, speaking through its Secretary, Alhaji Bashir Akanbi, had alleged that the students were “beaten and stripped naked by security personnel attached to the governor’s office.”

The statement urged the opposition in the state not to “decorate bare_faced lie as truth,” all in the name of antagonism, stating that even though the students sought to embarrass the governor on his first day in office by acting in a manner suggestive of their being sponsored by the opposition, as a father to them, Senator Ajimobi addressed the protesting students and assured them that government would address all their grievances.

He wondered why the PDP would blame the new government, which was assuming office on its first day, as the State Secretary did, when the past PDP_led government increased the school fees of the students in the first place.

“We urge the PDP to play opposition of maturity and stop serving the people a broth of lies laced with antagonism. The new government in Oyo State has promised to review downwards the fees of students of The Polytechnic, Ibadan. We wonder why a government which flagrantly increased the polytechnic’s fees should accuse a government that is poised to reverse this trend of insensitivity,” the statement said.

The governor reiterated its commitment to reduce the high school fees being paid by parents of students of The Polytechnic, Ibadan and said that no blackmail, even though dressed as criticism, would deter it from implementing its laudable programmes for the people of the state.