Bisi
Akande and the Armed Robbers
Sam Nda-Isaiah
ndaisaiah@yahoo.com
Bisi
Akande was the late Bola Ige’s most trusted ally. In spite of his age,
the immediate past governor of
Osun
State
could be said to be a Bola Ige boy, in Nigeriaspeak, that is.
Akande was also
Cicero
’s
secretary to the government (1979-83) when he (Ige) was the governor of
the old Oyo
State.
When
candidates were being screened for the governorship contest in the
Alliance
for Democracy (AD) in 1998, it was said that Iyiola Omisore was set to
pick up the ticket for
Osun
State
on account of his popularity. But Bola Ige, who was then the political
godfather of the state, stepped in, in favour of his former secretary to
the government. It was said then that the late AD strongman convinced
Omisore to wait (since he was much younger) till 2003. Omisore accepted
to be Akande’s deputy, meanwhile. Having secured the ticket, the
contest was virtually over for Akande as it was clearly impossible for
any other party apart from the AD to win any election in the South West.
He won, like all AD governorship candidates in the South West.
Bola
Ige subsequently accepted to serve as a minister under the new
government of Olusegun Obasanjo, first as minister of power and steel
and attorney general and minister of justice. Discord started early
between Omisore and Akande. In no time, what started as a family tiff
became a full-blown altercation. Ige sided with the governor and Omisore
saw this as an act of bad faith. He declared quite early that the
assassinated attorney general had reneged on his promise of supporting
him for the governorship in 2003. Omisore also charged the governor of
marginalising his supporters. One thing led to the other. Bola Ige got
assaulted at the precincts of the palace of the Ooni of
Ife
.
A few days later, this very politically astute and mercurial man, who
many saw as the heir to the political estate of the late Chief Obafemi
Awolowo, was shot dead at his residence in
Ibadan
.
The greatest irony in this is that Bola Ige would be killed by his
people. Omisore was fingered as the principal suspect. But he was a
deputy governor with immunity.
When
trouble started between Omisore on the one hand and Ige/Akande on the
other, Omisore joined the Obasanjo camp. He needed an effective
counterpoise against Bola Ige. The majority AD House of Assembly in
Osun
State
soon impeached him as deputy governor to strip him of the immunity that
kept him away from the arms of the law. But it appeared that the former
deputy governor became even more influential after his impeachment. He
started moving around with truckloads of policemen and other
appurtenances of power, which not even serving governors enjoyed. But
the South West establishment, supported by its media, unleashed a deluge
of attacks on the Obasanjo government for fraternising so openly and
unabashedly with an alleged murderer that Omisore had to be given up
temporarily. By now, the PDP - at least the Obasanjo faction - had made
up its mind to field Omisore as its governorship candidate. Olagunsoye
Oyinlola, the former
Lagos
State
military administrator in the government of the late General Sani
Abacha, was to be senatorial candidate. But the arrest of Omisore
changed all that. Omisore in detention nominated Oyinlola as the
governorship candidate in his stead and in effect became his political
benefactor. Oyinlola never took any decision as a candidate without
consulting Omisore in prison. Many aspirants who wanted to be candidates
for the different elections such as House of Representatives, Senate,
etc, had to travel to the different prison cells Omisore was kept, to
seek his face. When it was time for the elections and against all common
sense and the received wisdom, Oyinlola of the PDP "beat"
Akande, Ige’s protégé. No one believed the results just as no one
believed Obasanjo was popular enough to be re-elected president of
Nigeria
.
But as I have proved several times on these pages, incumbency power in
the last few years has transmuted into the power to cheat. It used to be
said that politicians rig only where they are strong. Not any more! We
are made to believe that in the last election, Bola Ige "lost"
all the elections to Omisore in his own Esa Oke, because at the end of
the day, the April 2003 elections in
Osun
State
were really a contest of popularity between Ige and Omisore. No surprise
that Omisore "won" the elections. The election was conducted
by the same INEC that has it on its records that the murdered Marshal
Harry also voted during the last elections. For those who have
forgotten, Harry died long before the elections.
This
very long preface helps to explain Akande’s current predicament. When
Akande was governor, he was generally known as Mr. Clean. Many would
vouch for his perpendicularity. But when he lost the election, he did
not fight back, as he and his mentor, Ige, did in 1983, when they were
rigged out by Shagari’s NPN. He simply said he would allow sleeping
dogs continue let their underserved sleep. He said, if armed robbers
successfully enter your house and steal your property, there would be no
point fighting back. But everyone knew that he and the other three
swindled AD governors of the South West - Segun Osoba of
Ogun
State
,
Lam Adesina of Oyo State and Niyi Adebayo of
Ekiti
State
- had other reasons for not fighting back. Their alibi had
nothing to do with capitulation to fatalism but everything to do with
ethnicity. Their scandalous pacifism is because the ultimate beneficiary
of this serial armed robbery is another Yoruba man. The armed robbers
are now in charge. And as they say, if you don’t catch a thief, the
thief will catch you. And that is exactly what has happened to Akande.
Oyinlola
is now accusing Akande of being an even bigger armed robber. In November
2001, the construction of what was to be known as Bola Ige House was
awarded to a contractor for the sum of N883 million. In the contract
terms, no variation was to be allowed. That was agreed ab initio.
Tropic Consults Ltd, owned by a certain Lanre Oladeji, was appointed
project managers. But quite very unusually, payments for the contractors
were funnelled through Tropic Consult and Oyinlola said a lot of shady
things happened between the Akande government and Tropic Consult. He
said Akande hurriedly approved the sum of N230 million a few days before
the handover of power as variation, which was of course a clear breach
of the original contract agreement. The consultant himself, Mr. Oladeji,
confessed that he disbursed N85 million as kickback to government
officials to fund AD campaigns in the 2003 elections. This was done
through the Osogbo branch of National Bank, it was later found out.
Initially,
this did not appear to matter to Governor Oyinlola. He was just happy to
have become a governor. But with the release of his godfather, Omisore,
by the courts and the tension and apprehension this has engendered, the
need arose to place Akande permanently on a short leash. This is not to
say that Akande has no questions to answer. It’s just that I am
surprised that Governor Bola Tinubu of
Lagos
State
,
the only AD governor left standing has not shown any solidarity with
Akande by digging out some contract Oyinlola also helped himself to. I
am sure Tinubu will not need to try too hard to find something. Now,
Akande must explain to all of us why he should not become a guest of
Nuhu Ribadu. For understandable reasons, he prefers Justice Mustapha
Akanbi’s ICPC. Akande was the only man left fighting to unmask Ige’s
killers. Now that he has been hedged in by the armed robbers, is the
matter considered dead? Many will probably think so, but that’s
because they have short memories. The AD was defeated last year. This
year, it will be buried and there will be no mourning for the party
whose grundnorm was ethnic suzerainty.
Next
time Akande sees an armed robber in his neighbourhood, he will not treat
him with kid gloves, even if that armed robber was his kinsman.
Sam
Nda-Isaiah is the Publisher of LeadershipConfidential
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