The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ogun State has denied allegations by Governor Dapo Abiodun-led government that it sponsored a violent protest that rocked Sagamu town on Monday.
Youths protesting the scarcity of the new naira notes went on a rampage yesterday, setting ablaze banks and carting away the mace of Sagamu Local Government legislative house.
Media Talk Africa had reported that Abiodun’s Chief Press Secretary, Kunle Somorin accused the PDP of masterminding the crisis.
Reacting, the Ogun PDP blamed the Sagamu riot on a directive by Gov Abiodun that residents should continue to spend the old naira notes despite an order by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and President Muhammadu Buhari that the old N500 and N1000 notes are no more legal tenders.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, the PDP State Secretary, Sunday Solarin, dismissed the allegations, saying the refusal of commercial banks to take the old notes from residents despite the governor’s directive might have caused the mayhem.
“Having given the people the old notes and knowing fully well that it will no longer be legal tender and the people went to the bank to see if they could give this money back to the banks and it was blatantly refused, I want to believe that it is the refusal if the banks to collect this money that triggered the riot we witnessed in Sagamu yesterday,” Solarin said.
He maintained that the governor ought to have put in place, measures to forestall the Sagamu riot, having recorded similar attacks in Abeokuta, three weeks ago.
The party scribe denied PDP’s involvement in the riot, saying “we have no records of masterminding violence.”
He urged people to be calm in the face of troubled times, saying there is light at the end of the tunnel.
