Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinkam has alleged that the Olusegun Obasanjo administration ‘protected’ those who murdered Nigeria’s former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Bola Ige at his home in Ibadan in 2002.
Siyinka made this known in a statement entitled “Trivialise Corruption, Neutralise Justice”, issued in his capacity as convener of Citizen Forum, released om Tuesday.
According to him, impunity reigns where there is no justice, and that the crisis currently rocking the judiciary shows that the nation and its leaders did not learn from the murder of the late Mr Ige and “the manner investigations into his death were handled”.
Mr Ige served first as Minister of Power and later as Minister of Justice under Obasanjo’s unity government between 1999 and 2007.
Soyinka insisted Obasanjo’s government knew the killers of the late minister and politician and indeed allegedly protected and rewarded them.
“ Those who wish to dispute this had better first immerse themselves in the circumstances of that murder, and the unconstitutional, indeed illegal trajectory of the principal accused, one that not only facilitated his unconstitutional participation in the ensuing election but catapulted him straight to the occupancy of the seat that had been kept warm for him during his trial and absence,” Mr Soyinka said.
“On release, he was ushered straight into the slot of Chairman of the Appropriation Committee of the House of Representatives. That was not all. The head of that government, General Olusegun Obasanjo, proceeded to burnish Ige’s memory with characteristic zeal.”
Theprincipal the Nobel winner referred to is now in the APC, the current ruling party in Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari.