OLAGUNSOYE OYINLOLA: Captain of Infamy

ADVERTORIAL

Olagunsoye Oyinlola’s advertorial response to The Punch Editorial of Thursday 28th January, 2010 was a predictable smokescreen designed to mask the truth and deceive the general public. Unfortunately for Oyinlola, his vociferous proclamation of being peace-loving is resoundingly countermanded by the endless string of violence, repression and deaths which have defined his usurpation of the corridors of power in Osun State.
The discerning public has the responsibility to subject Oyinlola’s claims to the test of factuality and truth. In particular, the Action Congress, on whose members have been unleashed the suffocating tentacles of Oyinlola’s tyranny, owes itself the sacred duty of preventing Oyinlola from camouflaging yet again as a man of peace.
The Punch Newspaper was correct in bringing its editorial searchlight on the orgy of violence and mindless killings that have sign-posted Oyinlola’s reign of terror in Osun State. Sadly, Chief Ade Komolafe is far from being the only one who has had to pay with his life in the onerous but just struggle for the liberation of Osun State from the stranglehold of interlopers and unscrupulous power merchants.
An earlier victim of Oyinlola’s reign of terror was Hassan Olajokun whose only “offense” was to fervently support Rauf Aregbesola’s legitimate quest to be Governor. Other victims include Saheed Adebiyi, from Ikirun, Ayo Oni from Igbajo, Samson Olanrewaju from Ile-Ife, Gbenga Ojo from Ilesa and numerous others whose lives were cut short simply because they served as electoral polling agents for their party, the Action Congress.
Dispensers of tyranny are usually quick to engage in needless caterwauls and diversionary non sequiturs whenever their true record is exposed to public scrutiny. As such, Oyinlola’s spirited response to the Punch Editorial could not have come to anyone as a surprise. It was quite convenient for Oyinlola to forget to disclose in his advertorial that the number of political killings in Osun State during his bedeviled tenure as Governor far exceeded those that had occurred during the combined tenure of all the five men who preceded him in office as Osun State Governor. It is quite instructive and supremely revealing that his tenure, much earlier, as Military Governor of Lagos State, was replete with a similar orgy of violence and deaths. Indeed, he was so busy orchestrating violent repression in Lagos State that he had no time, energy or inclination to locate where bitumen could be purchased for rehabilitating Lagos roads!
Moreover, it is no secret that among the 36 states of Nigeria, Osun State, with Oyinlola at its helms of affairs, enjoys the woeful distinction of having the highest number of murdered polling agents during the 2007 election! Of course, because these agents belong to the Action Congress, the leading Opposition party in Osun State, Oyinlola has ensured that in no single case has any of the murders been thoroughly investigated and the culprits brought to justice. Rather, Oyinlola transmuted the instruments of Government into a Gestapo apparatus that continues to witch-hunt, harass, physically assault and murder innocent members of the opposition. His record of infamy is a reenactment of the repressive atrocities that characterized the years of Sani Abacha, when Oyinlola was the Military Administrator in Lagos State. It is a well known fact that back then, more people were killed in Lagos State for protesting the annulment of the June 12 election than in all the other 35 states combined! Lagos, a city which from the days of Herbert Macaulay has long been the birthplace and domain for peaceful and legitimate political protestations, was denigrated into a fragment of hell during the repressive tenure of Oyinlola!
Certainly, Oyinlola’s administrative career has been trailed by sheer intolerance of any opposition. His innate instincts have continually exuded the ruthlessness and brutality long foreshadowed by his ignoble record of military service during which he brought disrepute to his country and profession by visiting the helpless with violence and brutality in Mogadishu, Somalia. Has Oyinlola ever responded to the United Nations report also cited by the New York Times that fingered him for murderous brutalities in Somalia? Indeed, it was Oyinlola’s capacity for terror that earned him the assignment from Sani Abacha to suffocate the legitimate yearnings of Nigerians for freedom from the hegemony of military rule.
Oyinlola lied that he has not been shielding criminals from the law. His advertorial gleefully referred to the Osun bomb blast; he coyly appealed to the Punch Newspaper to assist in bringing the culprits to book. Oyinlola should have instead appealed to his own reprobate conscience because he needs no one’s permission to stop misusing the police to victimize innocent political opponents. Where is the only survivor of the bomb blast? He is quarantined in the Government House, Oke Fia, Osogbo, just to implicate Oyinlola’s archenemy- Rauf Aregbesola- or better still to stop him from exposing the real culprits behind the bomb blast.
Oyinlola further lied that anyone who committed any form of crime in Osun State is made to face the consequences of the law. May we ask him whether laws exist in Osun State against the use of motor vehicles by maniacal drivers to recklessly terrorize the people? If such laws exist, can Oyinlola tell Nigerians whether anyone was arrested or prosecuted when his convoy knocked down a commercial motorcycle (okada) in Ikirun and crushed the two people on it; their skulls were scattered on the road while the convoy carried on as if nothing happened! Similarly, Deputy Governor Erelu Obada’s convoy crushed some people to death at Oke Baa’le, Osogbo, earlier in their first term. Oyinlola did not as much make a comment on the incident; he did not commiserate with the family of those killed!
In 2004, following the heavily rigged Local Government Election, the Alliance for Democracy headed for the Tribunal to contest the outcome of the election. AD candidates and members were physically assaulted, attacked, harassed and beaten up, right in the premises of the court and at times even inside the court hall to the consternation of all around. Indeed, the AD Chairman at that time, Alhaji Moshood Adeoti was a victim of this abuse of power by PDP apparatchiks and thugs.
Newspapers reported it widely the following day, but Oyinlola did not deem it fit to comment on it till date. Rather, he unwittingly revealed his own true attitude by boasting during his so-called Open Forum that “ti ekolo ba n se bi ejo, ipa ejo na ni won ma npa.” Paraphrased, Oyinlola averred that an earthworm should be killed simply because it wiggles like a snake! It was a Freudian slip in which Oyinlola recognized his regime as one of poisonous snakes! For him, it does not matter that unlike a snake, an earthworm is totally harmless! All that matters to a survivalist merchant of terror is that no other politician is allowed to “wiggle” even in a supposedly democratic dispensation! Such draconian Byzantinism reveals the cold Machiavellian calculations of a survivalist mindset that makes no pretense about the nuances of liberal democratic politicking. What impunity of tyranny!
Oyinlola claimed that he does not shield criminals from Justice. Fortunately, Oyinlola lacks the power to reduce the pages of Nigerian independent newspapers into his so-called “Governor’s Open Forum” where his cronies massage his ego and his fabricated claims go unchallenged. Thus, he must be reminded of the following pertinent cases:

• Sunday Adeyemo, a.k.a Sunday Igboho, a notorious thug from Oyo state who evaded arrest by relocating to Osun state where he becomes the head of the Oyinlola terror gang has grown so powerful that he now rubs shoulder with the power elites in Osun State. Prior to the 2007 General election, Sunday Igboho was caught with a cache of arms and sophisticated weapons kept in the home of an Islamic cleric in Osogbo. The Police/SSS arrested them but both were released without trial barely 24 hours after their arrest. Nothing has been heard of the case till date!
• This same Sunday Igboho was recently arrested by the police for gun running on the orders of the Inspector General of Police. However, a lawyer from the team defending Oyinlola’s stolen mandate at the retrial tribunal, went to court to seek Igboho’s release. It was promptly granted and Igboho is now back on the streets of Osogbo, doing what he knows best!
• In Igbajo, Boluwaduro local government, Opeyemi Ogundeji son of Akanmu Ogundeji, PDP House of Assembly candidate for Boripe/Boluwaduro State Constituency on 14th April, 2007 led five others and shot Mr. Ayo Kemba Oni, the AC Party agent at African Primary School Polling unit to death. The Police arrested and detained the six occupants of the vehicle. Alas! They were promptly released following the interference from “high quarters”; the suspects did not even go through the basic procedure of writing statements that could facilitate their trial. Oyinlola, who was the greatest beneficiary of the criminal act of snatching and stuffing ballot boxes, saw to it that those guys remain free and ready to do it again.
• On the same day, Isaac Makinwa, the sitting PDP Chairman in Ilesa East local government shot and killed four persons for daring to celebrate the victory of AC candidate in the election held that day. He was arrested by the Police, detained but released on Oyinlola’s order. The police could not charge him to court because Oyinlola, the captain of infamy, had so ordered. The families of the deceased are still crying for justice till date.
• In Ikirun, same day, life was snuffed out of Saheed Adebiyi, an AC party agent by thugs in the convoy of Simeon Oduoye, a PDP chieftain for trying to stop them from snatching the ballot box in his Polling Unit.
• Samson Olanrewaju, like the other victims, was a promising young man; he had a beautiful future ahead of him. His raw courage to stop the thugs led by Iyiola Omisore, a supposedly elected senator, from carrying away the ballot box under his watch as AC party agent, cost him his life. One of the thugs simply shot him dead!
• Oyinlola and his cohorts, in an effort to erase all traces and records of the heinous and horrendous killings, stole the corpse of Ayo Kemba Oni from the morgue of LAUTECH and buried him secretly in an unmarked grave.
• Alhaja Taibat Orija (a.k.a. Jeunkogbadun) was the PDP Women leader in Ede North local government until she decided to decamp to the ANPP. On the night of her decampment, she was shamelessly murdered and until today her killers still move about without being arrested.
• In the PDP itself, Chief Tony Osanyin was shot dead by supposed armed robbers who, when arrested, confessed the name of their sponsors who happened to be PDP leaders from the same zone. Instead of getting them arrested, the self confessed errand boy died in police custody and that ended the story till date.
• In Oyinlola’s own local government, Alhaji Shuaib Oyedokun’s cousin was killed in his backyard in Inisa.

In his advertorial, Oyinlola challenged The Punch newspaper to mention those that were killed in his backyard in Okuku but chose not to deny other killings mentioned in the Punch editorial. Might his silence over those other killings be an admittance of guilt? Since Oyinlola wanted to know the name(s) of those killed, we hereby challenge him to tell the world whether Hon. Sunday Awotikunde, a former Councilor from Ilare ward, Ife Central, did not die in his Okuku home while several others were wounded.
In September 2007, Chief Gani Oladiran was accused of involvement in the rape and dehumanization of Miss Tosin Ajakaiye and other members of Action Congress (AC). Also accused were Ibukun Fadipe and six others. It is sad and unfortunate that up till now Oyinlola has not uttered a word despite the worldwide outrage that greeted the incident that traumatized the life of the young lady, who was then seventeen (17) years old. When Oladiran and the other boys were pickedup for questioning by the police, Oyinlola prevented IBK’s arrest till date on this matter and as for those arrested; they only got a pat on the back in the ‘usual family affair’ treatment.
Oyinlola referred to Senator Bayo Salami as his friend. With a “friend” like Oyinlola, Senator Salami, does not need an enemy! Senator Salami is one of the most benevolent personalities in Osogbo, capital of Osun state. On April 15, 2007, when tension rose in Osogbo over the fraudulent declaration of Oyinlola as the winner of the gubernatorial election, Senator Salami took it upon himself to appeal on the state radio for calm and an end to the ensuing violence. Even so, his “friend” still went ahead to include his name in the list of those accused of arson. Senator Salami ended up spending 30 days at Ile Ife Prison before he was released on bail. He is still standing trial at the Osogbo High Court on the matter till date. Oyinlola’s revisionist claim that Senator Salami was arrested for bomb blast revealed a penchant for barefaced lying, fraudulent propaganda and selective amnesia. The truth is that Senator Bayo Salami, Oyinlola’s “friend”, was under incarceration at Ile-Ife Prison on the day of the bomb blast!
The tall tales around the bomb blast was even more intriguing. The claim that a diary was found in the wreckage of the car nine full months after the event, in which notable names of AC leaders and judicial officers were said to have been found exposes all his antics to deliberately put away all members of the opposition through phoney charges.
Oyinlola commented that Ibukun Fadipe’s case is with the police. Quite true! It is also true that Oyinlola has always subjected the prosecution of his henchman to undue interference from high quarters. Fadipe’s record of “service delivery” in muzzling the voice of opposition is legendary. His resume includes being associated with sundry crimes such as the death of Chief Agbo Obadare, the death of septuagenarian industrialist, Chief Ade Komolafe, the attack on Hon Lipson for daring to collect PDP nomination form against Fadipe’s instruction, pouring hot pot of soup on a food attendant in an Ilesa canteen, countless other assaults and harassments of innocent citizens. Alas! His nefarious activities only resulted in his being elevated to the Chairmanship of a local government!
Fadipe was impeached in August 2008 by the Councilors in Ilesa West local government for slapping and stripping naked Mrs. Fausat Sarumi Adebanjo, the immediate past Commissioner for Women Affairs who hailed from the same local government with him. There has been no resolution of the councilors reversing that impeachment but Fadipe remains in office because Oyinlola has granted Fadipe immunity from police prosecution and political accountability! Pray, in what other way would a Governor have exhibited impunity and endorsed impudent criminality?

Finally, Oyinlola will do us a lot of good if he speaks up today on the people murdered since the advent of his ignoble and tyrannical rule in Osun state. We hereby reiterate our call on the Federal Government for the inauguration of an open and independent judicial commission of enquiry into the climate of terror in Osun State. Alternatively, an open Citizen Inquiry organized by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA)/National Human Right Commission should look into all the gross human right abuses and extra judicial killings that have occurred from 2003 to date in Osun State.