Expectedly, and quite justifiably too, President Olusegun Obasanjo has been basking in a last-minute publicity bliss in the media, both broadcast and print. It is one of his finest hours and he is seizing every moment of it. Tonnes of thanks to Information Minister, Frank Nweke Jnr., and the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mrs. Oluremi Oyo.

They have done an excellent job. The president’s interview and supplement in TELL magazine, as well as his valedictory session on FRCN’s The President Explains were characteristically flamboyant (not without occasional hollering) and were as intriguing as they were interesting.
The president would have had an almost flawless outing had a caller not posted the question on the yet-to-be-solved murder of Chief Bola Ige to him. A political octopus of Yorubaland, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, and sitting Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation at the time, Ige suffered one of the greatest injustices in contemporary history when he was murdered in a Gestapo fashion, at his Ibadan, Oyo State home, on Christmas Eve of 2001.
In an answer to the caller’s enquiry, President Obasanjo informed a bewildered nation that a drug baron might have murdered the politician.

“The case is still being investigated,” the president said. “The police will never close any case, particularly when it involves high profile murders. However, the police recently got a clue that a certain drug baron was linked to Bola Ige’s murder. The former Attorney General was prosecuting a case, which involved the said drug baron. Maybe that is why the suspect arranged it. That is the latest information on it and the police are still continuing their investigation.”
Sunday Ehindero, Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police, expatiated on the president’s shocking disclosure on Tuesday, declaring that the drug baron had, in fact, been prosecuted by Ige for importing 13 containers of narcotics and jailed for 30 years. But he disclosed further that the baron took his pound of flesh from the minister by arranging his murder from prison.

Opinions are sharply divided on the latest information on the issue. While many people believe it is an exit strategy by the fast fading administration, others say it gives a glimmer of hope that the deceased might get justice after all. I belong to the first school of thought.

I would have shouted ‘hurray!’ had the police made this revelation, say six months or even a year after the assassination, and gone ahead to parade and prosecute the baron and his comrades-in-crime. But coming five solid years after, and at the twilight of an administration under which watch several high profile assassinations were committed and remain unsolved, the latest information cannot but arouse suspicion. And there are good reasons to be suspicious.

Our experiences, as a nation, over the years, have made us, ordinary Nigerians, to understand that lies and politics have become constant companions in our polity. This reality has been so blatantly buttressed by political leaders who constantly stand truth on its head before nailing it to a bleeding cross. In the political lexicon of most of our leaders, truth is amorphous.

To them, anamorphosis is a creed. Thus, monumental looting is explained off as misappropriation (remember the way Admiral Augustus Aihkomu, Chief of General Staff under the Ibrahim Babangida dictatorship, brushed off the looting of Ogun State by a military administrator, a top brass in the Navy at the time, who merely received a slap at the wrist and told to go and sin no more); thus glaringly conspicuous homicide becomes officially branded accidental discharge (as in policemen mauling down innocent citizens at check points); and thus raw murder is presented as robbery attack (as in the case of the late Harry Marshal, who was murdered in his home, like Ige, and the offence was hung around the necks of some young criminals, that were paraded in Abuja as the robbers who robbed and killed him).

No doubt, Bola Ige’s murder is perhaps one of the greatest challenges that confronted the outgoing Obasanjo Administration since December 23, 2001, when the evil was perpetrated. And the disclosure by the president is one of the biggest developments we have seen so far in the case. Still, things don’t add up.
First, investigation into the matter could be said to be anything but thorough. Rather, it was full of absurdities, sordid drama and high-wire intrigues. At first, a man who purported to be mad had reported at the Iyaganku Police Station in Ibadan, the state capital, claiming he executed the evil act. He died in mysterious circumstances later.

Shortly after that, Olugbenga Adebayo, alias Fryo, reported at Festus Keyamo’s chambers in Lagos, claiming he was a foot-soldier of Iyiola Omisore, a former deputy governor of Osun state, who later got elected as a Senator of the Federal Republic from prison custody, while standing trial (with other politicians) for the murder. Omisore had been embroiled in a war of wits with Chief Bisi Akande, his boss and the then Osun state governor, culminating in an assault on Ige at the palace grounds of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, during which thugs that were allegedly sympathetic to him removed the late minister’s cap.

Even when the case eventually got underway, some of the judges assigned the case at various points chickened out, alleging threats from “unexpected quarters”. In fact, Justice Moshood Abbas, the third judge to handle the case, told an open court of being “under untold pressure” from “unexpected quarters” before announcing his withdrawal. As the drama continued to unravel, one of Ige’s aides, who had signified intension to tell the court all he knew about the case, suddenly grew cold feet and capitulated.

Justice Atinuke Ige, the late minister’s wife, an internationally acclaimed judge, died suddenly (apparently disgusted and frustrated by the unusual form the case was taking). Before Mrs. Ige, Chief Debo Akande, one of the prosecution lawyers, had also died. Wife of Justice Atilade Ojo, who eventually concluded the case and freed the suspects, also died. Eventually, the Oyo State Ministry of Justice dismissed the case against Omisore and co for lack of diligent prosecution. Buffeted by scorching public opprobrium that followed, Lekan Latinwo, the then Oyo State Commissioner for Justice, apologised to the Ige dynasty and Nigerians over the “shoddy” manner the case was prosecuted. With Omisore’s acquittal, the police declared the case closed. Consequently, the Ige family resigned to fate, leaving their case for God to judge. Since then, there had been a lull in the case.

But the president stirred the hornets’ nest, last week, when, in answer to a caller’s question on the radio programme, he said a drug baron masterminded Ige’s murder.

I’m reluctant to believe that the president would tell a deliberate lie on this very serious issue. Reason: Ige was his friend. They were so fond of each other that, I understand, they addressed each other by first name. They shared the same values and leadership principles. In fact, Ige had so much faith in the president that he accepted to serve in the federal cabinet to spite Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba organisation that, in 1999, had chosen Chief Olu Falae to run against Obasanjo in preference to him. Prior to that, Ige had sworn never to serve under any undemocratic government.

Indeed, Chief Adeniyi Akanmu Fajobi, a second republic parliamentarian, and an ardent Ige disciple, confirmed to The Sun, in a recent interview, that the slain Justice Minister had, while in Zaria Prison, “vowed to his God that if he had the opportunity to serve his country again, he would never serve an unelected government. (But) That even with all his failings, President Obasanjo was one of the greatest leaders he knew and would like to serve under him if the opportunity came his way.” The opportunity came his way in 1999 and he grabbed it, not because he wanted to “come and eat”, in the fashion of corrupt politicians, but to serve diligently under a leader he had so much faith in.”

Although we do not know the quantum and quality of information at the president’s disposal, for him and the police to now ascribe the murder of his illustrious friend to a drug baron, sounds like saying the truth by half. I interacted with a close follower of the late Cicero of Esa Oke on Tuesday as I gathered materials for this piece and he told me that when he and some friends went to commiserate with him over the assault at the Ooni’s palace, the slain minister showed them a letter of resignation he had written and was about submitting to President Obasanjo.

In the letter, he reportedly listed his achievements in the Justice Ministry, including the resource control case at the Supreme Court, the Bakassi Peninsula case at the Hague, law reform, the prosecution and retrieval of the Abacha loot, among others, and submitted that he wanted to leave the cabinet to enable him prepare, alongside his people, for the 2003 elections. I was told there was never a place in the letter where he mentioned anything concerning a drug case. “This drug theory,” the aide submitted, “sounds like a tale by the moonlight. It should be discountenanced.”

I concur because the importation and seizure of 13 containers of narcotics at any point of entry, and into any country, is a big media issue. There is no way such a case would be prosecuted and the media would not feast on it, revealing the identities of the importers of death. It can never be a hush-hush affair. Adding all these up, my submission is that no one can extricate the local politics of Osun state at the time from Bola Ige’s murder. He fervently believed that politics is local. He believed and attached paramount importance to political events and trends in his home state in Osun, before moving to the southwest, and finally to the national arena.

Again, he was not only deeply involved in local politics, he never hid his admiration and support for Chief Bisi Akande, the then governor of Osun State, during the latter’s face-off with Omisore. He believed Akande was right and just in the position he took. He believed the man with a perpetually smiling face was a first class administrator in government that had the interest of the people at heart at all times, and, as such, should be protected and encouraged to succeed. Sadly, the Osun connection was not scrupulously investigated and prosecuted by the police and the Oyo State Ministry of Justice, resulting in the jumbling of the entire case. This does not do justice to Ige, a man of peace, a leader of leaders, who sacrificed his life to help secure our tomorrow.

Let the truth be told, the outgoing government has not done much to disabuse the minds of Nigerians from the fact that Ige’s assassination was largely political. Only a scrupulous investigation and diligent prosecution of the real killers would do justice to his memory. Anything contrary to that will, in the words of Professor Wole Soyinka, amount to dancing on his (Ige’s) grave.