chino11:
You were the governor of Oyo State at the time Chief Ajibola Ige was murdered. What was your experience then?
It was a bitter experience. That very day was a Sunday. It was the day we had our Christmas carol at the Government House. It was a norman Sunday; everything was going on fine. The carol came and went from 4:15 to 6:00pm that day. And then everybody dispersed. As if I got a signal of what was coming, my speech that day was centred on security in Oyo State. I called on the Commissioner of Police and the Inspector General of Police to strengthen security in Oyo State because an old school mate, Engineer Adegeebo, had been assassinated near his house in Bodija a week earlier.

Every cleric went home and I retired to Government House. I played for some time. Then I went to my room to treat some files. I was doing that when suddenly the phone rang. It was land line we were using then. The operator said that somebody wanted to speak with me. Then I picked the call and it was a brother to my deputy. He said he was asked to tell me that Chief Bola Ige had been shot by some unknown assassins. I was confused immediately. I didn’t know what to do. But later I regained my strength and quickly went down without telling my wife what was happening. It was 9:55 pm. I sent for my PS because all the ADC and other security staff had gone to their places of abode. I told him to drive me in one of the private cars. Inside the car, I told him that Uncle Bola Ige had been shot by some gunmen, that I was going to check him at Catholic Hospital, Oluyoro. The man who informed said Ige was taken to Oluyoro.

The place I have been treading for over 60 years, I remember that I lost my way. I was just going round and round until I gained my consciousness again. Immediately the gateman saw me, he quickly opened the gate. There, we saw Uncle Dele Ige, who was already rolling on the ground. I went straight to the room where Bola Ige was lying. I saw marks of bullets on his body. He slept with his face up. He was somehow breathing but the breathing was abnormal. I saw where the bullet penetrated on the left side. I saw it myself. Uncle Bola Ige was wearing shirt and trousers. And I saw Muyiwa standing by the side of the bed. He was wailing. He appealed to me, saying: ”Uncle, please tell the doctor to wake up my Daddy. Tell him. The doctor can do it.” Then, I approached the doctor and asked him the situation. The doctor called me to one side and told me that he was dead. He said: “Sir, Your Excellency, Uncle is gone. There is nothing we can do. They shot him straight in the heart. He asked me not to tell Muyiwa.

I almost betrayed my emotion when I got back into the room where Uncle was lying with Muyiwa beside his bed. I just quickly gathered myself and told Muyiwa that I was going to see the head of the hospital. That was how I bolted away. I came back to the Government House to inform Mr. President, who was Obasanjo at that time.

By the time I was going upstairs to my room, to try and tell Operator to phone Mr. President for me, the phone was already ringing. When I got into my room, it was still ringing. I quickly picked it up and it was Obasanjo.
He the Operator said the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria wants to talk to you. Then I asked him to put him on.
The question Obasanjo just asked was: “Is he certified dead?” I said: “Yes sir.” Then he dropped the phone. That was all. That was my experience. I can never forget that experience.

http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/news/30983-obasanjo%2C-pdp-knew-about-ige%26%23039%3Bs-death%E2%80%94lam-adesina.html

NaijaRoyalty:

All Progressives Congress chieftain, Bola Tinubu, has again stated that he is richer than Osun State and that he indeed said he was richer than Osun State during the run-up to the Osun State governorship election last year.

This comes months after Tinubu’s media team had claimed the APC chieftain was quoted out of context.
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He said, “They insulted me and said I used my mouth to speak anyhow. However, that rough-handedness paid off in Osun. They claimed that we brought candidates from Lagos to become governors in Osun; people like (Rauf) Aregbesola and (Gboyega) Oyetola.

“If we train your children, and they become experts in their fields, won’t we ask them to come home to make things better? How much is your money that I’ll embezzle? You can’t match my pocket. I told them so, and their traditional rulers were seated.

“They were even recording the incident and published it.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/punchng.com/i-said-i-was-richer-than-osun-state-tinubu-admits/%3famp

Babasessy:

The Awolowo rebirth in the Southwest has inspired gongs, songs and rhetoric of sorts. But they have missed one point.

It occurred to me in Abeokuta last week amidst the big crowds and euphoria of the swearing-in of Senator Ibikunle Amosun as governor. In all the states from Lagos to Edo, where Awo has witnessed ideological resurgence, hardly a single family member has played a role.

So we have an Awo family without an Awo. That is an irony. But history overwhelms us with this sort of twist. Obafemi Awolowo toiled for his reputation. His roots were lowly, he toiled to school both home and abroad, launched into careers in law, business, journalism and eventually politics. He carved a niche for himself, and became the first methodical and charismatic leftist in our history.  Other leftists abounded but they did not inspire comparable drama and following.

He faced tribulations, went to jail, failed in elections, won a few, but he imprinted his ideas and legacy in the country, and no single mortal has beaten him in the history of this country. His greatest achievement was in the area of ideas, and that was how he fashioned a family. Most families are born of biology but his issued from ideology. That family suffered with him.

In a spoof of Jesus Christ, these were the men who followed him in his teachings, and endured with him in his temptations. So he formed a kingdom for them in the Southwest, in the old Western Region, presiding over his projects, his legacies and people.

In all of these, the family he had was not his flesh and blood. In another spoof of Christ, who were his family anyway? Those who were with him must be counted as his family. So, I combed in the ambience of Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), and I found none. I went to Ogun, I frisked the crowd under Amosun’s bower, hardly any. Around Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in Osun, I could not lay a finger. With Governor Kayode Fayemi in Ekiti, where are the forbears of Awo? Yet, I can hear the chants of Awo. Hardly in any of the inaugural speeches or any of their other public intervention would you miss the philtre and filter of Awo from these gentlemen. To parody Novelist Joseph Conrad, they are the sparks from Awo’s sacred fire, the messengers of the might within the man.

Already all of them are pursuing the legacy ideas of Awo: free education, free health services, infrastructural development, urban renewal and economic engineering.

Lagos has posted itself as the John the Baptist. The others are putting up valiant efforts, and the world of course is watching to see how well they will perform. It will call for great work, resourcefulness and cooperation. They are the real Awoists, and Awo was a man of rigour and vigour.

The Awo son that many expected to take after the father was Olusegun, who unfortunately died in a car crash. We shall never know if he could have pulled it off.  But the others have not shown much of the paterfamilias’ brio and depth. In the past decade, under this republic, they have blended with the wrong crowd. Even H.I.D, hobnobbed with Alao-Akala, who brought illiteracy to governance; with Oyinlola who turned the grace of office into a hell-hole of despots; with Daniel who could not arrest his quick fall into megalomania.

I wrote once that this woman whom Awo once described as the jewel of inestimable value has lost value to his cause. If he came back to life, he would have committed the extraordinary act of divorce after death. Even his newspaper, The Tribune, has so stumbled and fallen that it swims in Awo’s vomit.

                                                                             http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/columnist/monday/sam-omatseye/index.1.html