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