FOR over 40 years, he functioned in the court of justice; he got justice for quite a number of people, he even superintended over justice in the land but when he needed justice the most, he was denied justice. That was Chief Bola Ige, the nation's Minister of Justice who was brutally murdered in his Ibadan residence 10 years ago.Given the speed at which the appropriate authorities swung into action, arresting suspects and charging them to court, the impression was that in no time those suspected to have had a hand in the murder of the former Attorney General of the Federation would be brought to justice. But unfortunately, one after the other the suspects were exonerated and the country has since been left with the unanswered question: Who killed Bola Ige'Since nature abhors vacuum, the inability of those who should answer the question to do so has given room to conjectures. There are those of the view that the December 23, 2001 gruesome killing of the former governor of the old Oyo State was a culmination of the activities which started a few weeks earlier in Osun, his home state. There had been a bitter feud between Chief Bisi Akande, former governor of Osun State, and his then deputy, Chief Iyiola Omisore. The feud polarised the state as people identified with either of the leaders. The long-drawn-out bad blood between the two apparently contributed to the shedding of the blood of a member of the state House of Assembly, Odunayo Olagbaju, which resulted in a spiralling orgy of violence in the state.A week prior to the killing of Ige, the Ooni of Ife Oba Okunade Sijuwade had conferred an honorary chieftaincy title on Mrs Stella Obasanjo, the then First Lady, and Ige was one of the guests at the function. In the course of the programme, some hoodlums seized Ige's cap and hung it on a tree within the palace.Chief Bisi Akande is one of those persuaded that the lawlessness permitted in Osun State shortly before the assassination of the former Justice Minister might have contributed immensely to Ige's killing.In a 2004 article titled Deeper Graves Than Bola Ige's, Akande wrote, 'I received telephone calls in Mecca that the Osun State Police Command was being directly, without passing through the Inspector General of Police, controlled from Aso Rock by PDP leadership including President Obasanjo himself. I was asked to break my pilgrimage rituals to return to Nigeria to avoid a declaration of state of emergency being planned for Osun State. The story was that if a few people could be killed in a riot, President Obasanjo would suspend me from office as the Governor and take over the state. Riots were truly orchestrated. The House of Assembly was sacked. Arrests of people with arms and charms parading as rioters were made. Commands were coming from Aso Rock to the Police in Osun State that prosecution should be stopped and those arrested should be released.'Uncle Bola phoned and asked me to return urgently to see President Obasanjo and did not tell me further details. I asked my security detail, who accompanied me to Mecca, for advice and he suggested that it would be better to return home immediately. Governor Bola Tinubu and I discussed the desirability of returning home urgently too. I told them, I was more convinced by what God could do for me than what man any man for that matter, might have in store against me. I decided to stay back for another 10 days thereafter. I told Uncle Bola so. He advised me to speak to Mr President on phone. I did not attempt doing so but I tried to placate Uncle Bola by saying I was unable to reach Mr.President on phone. I am happy, however, that I had the opportunity of telling President Obasanjo, in writing, on my arrival from the pilgrimage, that his harassment and intimidation of my administration's security apparatus in Osun State, during my absence on pilgrimage, created a fertile atmosphere for the eventual assassination of Uncle Bola Ige.'But that is just a leg. There are also people who believe that the leadership crisis that had rocked the Alliance for Democracy (AD), Ige's party, could have been the reason behind his killing. Chief Ige, according to findings, had, shortly before his assassination, intimated President Olusegun Obasanjo of his intention to resign as a cabinet member the following March because he wanted to have time to organise his party for the 2003 elections.The crisis in the AD had preceded the appointment of Ige as a minister by Obasanjo. The crisis started during the choice of the party's presidential candidate. While many people had thought that Ige, being a founder of the party and the most visible of Obafemi Awolowo's disciples, would pick the party's ticket on a silver platter, Ige's colleagues at Afenifere thought otherwise. At D' Rovans Hotel, Ibadan, where the party leaders had gathered to decide on the party's candidate, Ige's colleagues shoved him aside and picked Olu Falae, who many observers perceived as being an outsider. The word in town then was that the Afenifere leaders were not too comfortable with the rising profile of the one called the Cicero of Esa Oke. So, they queued up behind Falae to clip Ige's wings.The ill feeling brewed by the choice of Falae was said to have simmered by the appointment of Ige as a minister though the leadership of Afenifere did not support his decision to join the government. There are those who believe that the news of Ige's full return to the AD 'to organise' it for the election could have precipitated his killing because some people saw Ige as having the best of two worlds. His opponents in his party were said to have been irked by the thought that the people would see Ige as the champion of the party after honouring the invitation 'to come and eat' by the opposition PDP.Another leg of the conjecture is that Ige was killed to facilitate the planned capture of the South-West by the Peoples Democratic Party. Ige had the gift of the garb. It was said of him that he could sell ice to an Eskimo. He was a wordsmith and a talented grassroots mobiliser.President Obasanjo, in the 1999 election, did not enjoy the support of the South-West, his home region as the AD held strongly to the six states in the geo-political zone, and he was determined to swing the tide in his favour in the 2003 elections because he had suffered derision from his party members who referred to him as a leader without home base support. So, the PDP was bent on taking over the South-West states. It was said that the PDP knew that the only person who could ensure the retention of the zone by the AD was Ige. It was even said that the invitation to Ige to serve in the PDP-led government was to whittle down his opposition to the government and his influence in the region.So, the news that Ige was resigning as a minister 'to organise the AD for 2003 elections' was said to have jolted the top hierarchy of the PDP, who allegedly worked towards his elimination.Until the killers of Ige are brought to justice, there won't be any end to the insinuations and conjectures about the cause of his death. Conjectures and insinuations thrive where the truth is muzzled. When the truth is freed, rumours flee.
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