By AAT
The Ogun State government has suspended the Commissioner for Environment, Abiodun Abudu-Balogun on allegations of sexual harassment.
A young lady who took to social media narrated how the Commissioner used his influence to invite her over to his house under the guise of employing her as a computer operator but later started harassing her by touching her breast severely.
Mr Abudu-Balogun was suspended from office with the report of sexual harassment levelled against him by a 16-year-old girl,Barakat Mayowa Melojuekun which is not proven to be true.
In a statement issued on Sunday in Abeokuta, the Secretary to the State Government, Mr Tokunbo Talabi, announced the suspension of the commissioner pending the conclusion of an independent investigation into the allegation.
He explained that the state government decided to suspend Abudu-Balogun to enable him to cooperate fully with the independent investigation being carried out by the police.
“Whilst taking cognisance of the principle of a suspect being presumed innocent until proven guilty and the public statement issued by Honourable Abudu-Balogun denying the allegation, as a government with zero tolerance for gender-based violence and indeed any criminality, the suspension is a further demonstration of the commitment of Dapo Abiodun administration to fairness, equity, justice and the rule of law, no matter who is involved,” the statement read.
Talabi assured the residents that the stated government would do everything necessary to ensure that justice was served in the case.
He disclosed that the suspended commissioner has been directed to hand over to the Permanent Secretary at the State Ministry of Environment.
It would be recalled that the Honourable Commissioner for Sport,Dr. Dare Kehinde popularly known as “Hacco” was suspended also at the beginning of the tenure over uncultured utterances to the former Governor of Ogun state,Chief Segun Osoba and findings revealed the Commissioner was only suspended by word and not on paper.
Till today,no report came out on the issue and Dr Kehinde has remained the Commissioner for Sport in Ogun state.
With this,people are waiting patiently for the governor to come out with a clean bill of report on the allegation and if proven to be true,the Commissioner should be totally removed from the current administration.
The Commissioner through his social media page said the allegation is false and it is the work of mischief makers who want to use every means to spoil his good name.
However,a youth counsellor who doesn’t want to be named said often times,many cases like this usually turned out to be a lie as it might be a way of getting back at the man should in case he had fought with someone.
He further said if truly the man took her inside her room and locked the door with the intention of sexually harassing her,he would have done so.
The counsellor advised the police to carry out proper investigation in order to arrive at a reasonable conclusion.