Jude Diugwu
A female commissioner in Ondo State, Mrs Adebunmi Osadahun has been beaten over the distribution of Federal government palliative in Akoko Northwest local government area of the state.
Osadahun, who is the commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development was allegedly beaten by a chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Olumide Awolumate for marginalising him in the sharing of palliative.
A video that surfaced yesterday showed how the Akoko Northwest Ward 1 Chairman of the APC, Awolumate popularly known as Cuba engaged the Commissioner in a public fight hitting her with a chair on the head and inflicting wound on her.
Sources said Awolumate who is the APC Ward Chairman in Akoko Northwest Ward 1 had promised to embarrass the woman commissioner by removing his name from the beneficiaries of the palliative of the Federal Government.
The State Government has flagged off the distribution of palliatives to vulnerable households in the state, with commissioners leading the distribution in their respective local governments.
The State Commissioner for Information, Bamidele Ademola-Olateju had said the food palliative will reach the targeted beneficiaries. In her Akoko Southeast Local government, she said that 1,200 bags of rice would be distributed to 6,000 households in the council area and that the initiative is meant for all residents of the state regardless of their political affiliations.
She had said “There will be five people to a bag of rice and here, we have trucks coming in to take the palliatives to various towns in Akoko South East comprising Ipesi, Sosan, Ifira, Epinmi, Isua among others. We have 1,200 bags of rice for Akoko South East and we are targeting 6,000 households in the local government”.
Ademola-Olateju said religious groups, market women, and traders associations among others would benefit from the palliatives.
Her words “We have selected the most vulnerable households but based on our experience while we are drawing the list, we have seen that we will go very far. We have Muslim community, Christian Association, Market women, traders association, tailoring association, and Iyalojas among others.
“We have been very diligent in making this selection. We will learn a lot of lessons from the distribution. Whatever lessons we learn, we are going to share it with the main committee and we hope we don’t learn a bad lesson even if we learn a bad lesson, we hope to gain from it because this is the first tranche and lesson learnt we are improved upon.”
However, a source who witnessed the fracas in Akoko Northwest said the female Commissioner called to report the assault on her to the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) who said he was out of town. He added that the incident happened while the policemen on duty looked away.
