The leader of the Oyo State motor parks management, Mr. Mukaila Lamidi (aka Auxilliary), has been arraigned for allegedly vandalising the campaign billboards of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and some All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates in the state.
Tinubu is the presidential candidate of the APC in next year’s election.
According to the charge sheet, Auxilliary was arraigned on a six-count charge bordering on wilful destruction of billboards of APC candidates in Igbo-Ora and Ido area of Ibadan.
He was taken to court by the Commissioner of Police.
At the hearing yesterday, his supporters stormed Ibadan North East Local Government premises of the magistrates’ court to support him.
Amotekun personnel were also mobilised to provide security for the court and the council facilities.
The charge sheet shows that Auxiliary was being prosecuted for “malicious damage and conduct likely to cause breach of the peace and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 517 of the Criminal Code, Cap 38, Vol. II, Laws of Oyo State of Nigeria, 2000.”
He was accused of committing the offence on November 13.
While the vandalised Tinubu’s billboard was said to cost N1.2 million, that of the party’s candidate for Ido/Ibarapa East Constituency, Aderemi Oseni, was valued at N3 million.
Auxilliary was alleged to have committed the offence alongside some others who were at large “in a manner likely to cause breach of the peace by destroying APC billboards.”
After pleading ‘Not Guilty,’ to the charges, the Magistrate, Taiwo Oladiran, granted him N500,000 bail and two sureties in like sum.
Hearing was adjourned till February 2, 2023.
Auxiliary is the chairman, Disciplinary Committee of the Park Management System (PMS), a task force introduced by Governor Seyi Makinde to manage activities of the NURTW in the state after he (Makinde) proscribed the union.
His name has been a recurring decimal in the drivers’ union violent activities since 2003, with several people calling on the governor to stop his involvement in park activities, as he is believed to be violent.
He was convicted of murder during the tenure of former governor Abiola Ajimobi. He completed his jail term shortly before the end of Ajimobi’s tenure in 2019 and immediately joined Makinde’s supporters.