“O generation of Vipers, how can ye being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” – Mathew 12: 34
In the beginning – ” Recently, Chief Bola Ige came on the Radio here(Oshogbo, the State Capital) to insult me & my family.THAT IS THE LAST TIME HE WOULD INSULT ME.He was beaten yesterday. The people of Ile-Ife beat him up & he was crying like a baby, as they removed his cap & glasses. If it had been at a Political gathering, he will be dead by now…… Infact, what the people wanted to do was more than removing his glasses and cap.” – Iyiola Omisore.
The late Chief Bola Ige was attacked by hoodlums in the Palace of Ooni of Ife on Saturday, December 15, 2002 and was assassinated a few days later in his residence in Ibadan. He was then the Attorney-General & Minister for Justice of the Nigerian Federation. The highest ranking Law Officer of the Country. Inspite of the statement quoted above, his assassins are yet to be apprehended and may never be.
Ige had joined the government of the then president, Olusegun Obasanjo , in what many political watchers had seen as a move to spite his “fellow purists” of Afenifere that had preferred Chief Olu Falae to him, as the Presidential Candidate of the defunct ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY (AD) for the 1999 Presidential Election. The Late Ige defended himself, that he saw his appointment and acceptance as a patriotic duty to serve his Fatherland. It’s instructive to state that the group that was vociferous in condemning the Cicero of Esa-Oke then is now the Political Allies of the PDP- controlled federal government whilst another segment of the same PDP had also teamed up with the nascent All Progressives Congress (APC) respectively.
Conspiracy theorists had it that Chief Bola Ige’s trouble started when he signaled his intention to resign from the cabinet of President Obasanjo ostensibly to go and reorganize AD. It was alleged that 5th columnists within the party in his native Osun State exploited this to get at the late Attorney-General and killed him. Meanwhile, the President, who had no electoral base in his region, was also scheming to have a foothold where the AD held sway. Maybe, that was why the investigation of the assassination of the Attorney-General was deliberately bungled by the federal authorities! Suffice to state that, with Ige out of the way, the PDP swept through the South-West in a Hitlerite blietzkrieg that sacked all the AD Governors but for Bola Ahmed Tinubu who fortuitously, remained the “only man standing”. OBJ had his heart’s desire of being in political control of the South-West Region but did not factor Tinubu’s staying power into his calculation. Tinubu rallied the depleted progressive forces in the South-West and reclaimed the region after seven turbulent years. The APC he leads is now in firm control of five of the six states OBJ seized after the 2003 elections in Nigeria.
At Present…. According to a report by Oladele Ogunsola of the Sunday Independent, the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the 6 States of the South-West Zone on Saturday, 4th January, met in Le Chateau Hotel, Bodija in Ibadan, to reaffirm their support for the leadership of President Jonathan as the leader of the party and also strategize on how to retake the zone from the APC. The National Auditor of the Party, Adewole Adeyanju, was present and Buruji Kashamu, the Chairman of the Organisation & Mobilisation Committee, declared Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the Number One Enemy of the party in the region.
According to him “as the Chairman of the Organising & Mobilisation Committee, I believe in myself that if we’re to win the South-West, we need strong people, political soldiers (thugs?) that can mobilize & organise in order to challenge our enemy. And who are our enemies? We all know that our Number One Enemy in the South-West is Bola Tinubu and when you’re not strong, tough and sure of yourself, you don’t have anywhere to go, if you have to contend with people like him.
“If we are ready to work, am ready to go if you’ll stand by me. If you are, let us start with Ekiti state governorship election and make it a sample to them,” Kashamu threatened.
These kinds of statements are ominous and instructive , if one remembers that Iyiola Omisore made similar unguarded statement about the late Bola Ige was assassinated a few days later. I had thought that in view of the gravity of the statement and its implication, the Camp of Buruji Kashamu would have taken steps to distance him from such a declaration.
If Bola Ige could be killed for allegedly stating that he wanted to re-organise the AD, one wonders what’ll be the lot of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu for leading the onslaught against the PDP not only in the South-West Zone in particular, but the whole country in general. The Snipers List now being talked about cannot be farfetched. The likes of Kashamu are thugs, who suffer from political kwasiokwor. As the Yoruba say, “Ani tia bata, kafi ra atupa, to lohun la ji tana wo” (the person we ought to sell and use the proceeds to buy a lamp)- that is what Kashamu is. An upstart. Irritant. The likes of him appear and disappear quickly like a vapour because they are of no value. Now that he has announced that he is on duty to issue threats and carry them out, we know how to deal with their types.
The top hierarchy of the APC had better take note. They must be very vigilant & redouble their Security arrangements. Vigilance is the price of freedom. The PDP had been described as a Nest of Killers and it is obvious that they do not take Prisoners.
Mallam Ahmed Jaji. Jaji2021@gmail.com
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