HOW OBJ ALMOST KILLED ME -AREGBESOLA
Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, yesterday took the former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, to the cleaners for condoning political violence while in office. Aregbesola, who appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set up to look into cases of human rights violations and abuses in the last eight years in Osun State, recalled series of attempts to kill him and abort his aspiration to become the governor of the state.
In an emotion-laden address he delivered to the Justice Uwaifo Samson-led commission, yesterday, the governor chronicled series of failed attempts by his predecessor, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, to assassinate him and truncate his political ambition. His emotion was, however, touched when counsel representing Oyinlola at the sitting of the commission, Mr. Temitope Elusogbon, asked his view about leaders who sponsored violence.
His words: 'Leaders, whether political, religious or otherwise, are supposed to display maturity in whatever they do. Our leaders have taught us and we also believe that political engagement is not a do or die affair. 'Your ancient ex-president of Nigeria declared to all Nigerians that that struggle was a life and death affair. He said the election was a 'do or die' and that everything must be done that his party must be returned.
'If there was a leader that was irresponsible, that was reckless, that was mindless, that was crude and succinctly so, Olusegun Obasanjo and all the millions he imported on us in the country were just that. Members of my party, leaders of my party are responsible men and women, who could not descend so low to traumatise fellow human beings. 'We do not see power in my party as a 'do or die'. It is madness of any political leader, governor or president in any country to sponsor or engineer political violence of any kind,' the governor stated.
Aregbesola explained how the former president connived with Oyinlola to humiliate and embarrass him because of his political aspiration, saying Obasanjo was an irresponsible leader who used his position to forcefully impose PDP government on the people of the state. He contended that political engagement should not be a 'do or die' affair in any setting as it was the case of the former president, who he said, disrespected the dignity of the human person. Citing specific instances, the governor recalled the assassination of his financier, Chief Sulaimon Hassan-Olajoku, on May 16, 2005 at Gbongan Junction, along Ibadan/Ife Expressway, just a month after the launch of his campaign structure tagged 'Oranmiyan'.
The governor also told the commission how, on May 25, 2005, suspected political thugs, led by one Wale Oni, disrupted a birthday ceremony organised for him by his friends in Ilesa.'As we were going to the venue of the ceremony in a convoy, one Wale Oni, a well known rough neck on the pay roll of Governor Oyinlola and his Deputy, Erelu Olusola Obada, led a gang of dare-devil men, wielding guns, pick axes and other deadly weapons and attacked our convoy.
'Using pick axes, the thugs ripped through a section of a bus that I was using for mobilisation activities exactly at the side where I used to sit. The clear intention of the murderous gang was to scythe me to death. When they discovered that I was not in the bus and that I had escaped their ploy to eliminate me, the thugs went berserk, pounced on everyone in the vehicle.
'The leader of the gang, Wale Oni, was arrested and handed over to the police. He was soon released shortly after the incident was reported to the police on a direct order of the Deputy Governor, Erelu Olusola Obada,' the governor recalled.
He also told the commission how he narrowly escaped being killed at the 2006 Oroki Day celebration by security details attached to ex-governor Oyinlola and led by one Liadi Gbadamosi.
The governor stated that after all the attacks at him failed, his father's house in Ilesa was vandalised while his octogenarian mother was forced out of Ilesa due to threat of attacks on her life. Other ugly experiences the governor recalled yesterday were the April 7, 2007 gun attack on his campaign office; attempts to implicate him in the June 4, 2007 bomb blast at the state secretariat, Abere; his arrest and incarceration for three weeks and numerous attacks and assassination attempts on his supporters and innocent civilians, who were sympathetic to his cause.
Reacting to his submission, the commission's Chairman, Justice Uwaifo Odemwingie, stated that the commission was not in any way out to 'assassinate anybody's character', adding that nobody would hear Aregbesola's story and not be moved.