The Osun State Police Command has arrested a serving member of the State House of Assembly, Hon. Abiola Ibrahim Inaolaji, alongside 146 suspected electoral mercenaries found camped at his residence in Ikire, Irewole Local Government Area, on the eve of Saturday’s governorship election. 

The lawmaker, who represents the Irewole/Isokan State Constituency on the platform of the ruling Accord Party, was picked up on Friday night in an operation carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation-Intelligence Response Team, with more than 200 Permanent Voter Cards reportedly recovered from the scene.

In a video that later circulated widely on social media, Inaolaji was seen being questioned by armed operatives at the property, which he identified as his late father’s residence, while dozens of people sat on the floor around him as officers sought an explanation for their presence.

Police spokesman, DSP Abiodun Ojelabi, said the lawmaker made a preliminary statement in which he admitted to facilitating the movement of the 146 suspects into Osun State from neighbouring areas for the purpose of voting in the election. Inaolaji, however, pushed back on suggestions that he had recruited or induced the group, insisting they were legitimate voters, some of them indigenes from outside the immediate area, who had gathered at the property simply to participate in the election.

The arrest is part of a broader crackdown by security agencies working to prevent electoral malpractice as voting got underway across the state, with a separate operation in Ede resulting in the arrest of 33 other suspected electoral mercenaries, comprising 30 men and three women, at a hotel behind the State High Court.

The development adds to weeks of friction between the Accord Party and the police in the build-up to the election, with the party’s leadership previously accusing the command of selective enforcement against its members while allegedly shielding rival actors, an allegation the police have denied, maintaining that arrests have been driven strictly by evidence rather than political pressure.

The Inspector-General of Police had earlier deployed a Deputy Inspector-General to coordinate security operations in the state, warning political actors against thuggery, voter intimidation and other electoral offences ahead of what is widely seen as a keenly contested race between the Accord Party’s Ademola Adeleke, the APC’s Bola Oyebamiji and the ADC’s Najeem Salaam.