Ismail Omipidan
Aremo Olusegun Osoba, former governor of Ogun State, has explained why Senator Femi Okurounmu, one of the leaders of Afenifere, is after him, saying that his relentless attacks on him are borne out of “jealousy, envy and wickedness.”
Osoba, who was responding to Okurounmu’s claim that he was a traitor, double agent and one of the Yoruba leaders who betrayed the late MKO Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the June 12 1993 presidential election, also described the senator, as a “frustrated and unfulfilled politician” who also failed in his chosen profession.
Speaking in an interview yesterday with journalists at his Ikoyi residence, the former governor, who said he would not descend into using uncouth, insulting and gutter languages like Senator Okurounmu did by referring to him as a traitor, a security agent and a double dealer, further said despite the attacks on his person in the last two weeks, he remains unruffled and unmoved.
“On the day I launched my book, I showed series of pictures and one was me as boxer at the age of 10. I also titled my book ‘Battlelines’ to show a lot of the blackmail that I suffered in both my professional and political life. As for Okurounmu,…
“Yoruba language is highly proverbial and Yoruba will describe Okurounmu’s situation as somebody suffering from ‘Ija ilara kii tan boro, Anjuwon ko see wi l’ejo’ (When you’re envious you carry that burden almost forever and an envious character cannot easily say the reason why he is envious particularly that God has been too kind and generous to the person he is envious of). That is the situation between me and Okurounmu,” Osoba said.
On the claim that he collaborated with the government of the late dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha while claiming to be a member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), Osoba, said
“My answer to that is I pray to God in heaven and our heroes, many who died in the cause of the struggle, particularly those unsung, too many people that suffered that are unsung; but I will be specific with our leaders that wherever they are in heaven, I appeal to them to forgive Okurounmu at 80 because insinuation that the military government was after me because I was an agent is false.
“If they were after me as a security collaborator and agent, then Okurounmu destroyed the spirit of these people who died in the cause that all of us who were marked down as stated in the evidence recorded in court that we are all agents. May the spirit of those who died in the cause forgive Okurounmu.”