Senator Iyiola Omisore was arrested and tried over the murder of Chief Bola Ige.In this interview, he alleges that “that the politicisation of Chief Ige’s murder did not allow for the tracking and prosecution of real suspects in the murder.”His comments come on the heels of renewed calls for the search of killers of Chief Ige,Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice at the time he was murdered.Excerpts:
Let us go to the issue of the murder of the former Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Bola Ige, it has become very controversial…
Late Chief Bola Ige was my mentor and leader. I had no reason whatsoever to think or contemplate his murder. My former boss, Chief Bisi Akande, sometime in 2002, said the death of Chief Ige had nothing to do with the crisis in the AD. That statement is in the public domain. In spite of all these, we were hounded into prisons for two years; we were tried, discharged and finally acquitted by the law court. As far as I am concerned, I have no hand in it and that accounted largely for my ability to win the senatorial seat in 2003, even in the home town of late Chief Ige. All manner of schemes were carried out by the investigators. They even brought in an FBI team led by Mr Clegg with a lie detector machine and I was given a clean bill. The man who led the operation gave us who were accused a pass certificate. Unfortunately, this fact did not come to the public domain.
But why are you still being seen as the culprit?
The only reason is the allegation that I granted an interview to a Nigerian weekly, Tempo in which I vowed to deal with Chief Ige. When I took the magazine to court, the newspaper denied the reports, saying some parts of the reports were smuggled in by the management of the paper. That marked the end of that newspaper till today. Unfortunately, my political enemies used it as a tool to malign me in the public. Thank God, the people of Osun know better.
That false accusation gave me sympathy that informed my victory in 2003, when I won convincingly in the election, while even in prison. Even the Festus Keyamo angle was brought in and the allegations were debunked the same day by Fryo. Immediately after Chief Ige was assassinated, his family members went to the police to report that they had been robbed by armed robbers and valuable items were charted away. The report is still incidented at the police station till date. It was the AD governors who tried to make political capital out of it.
People are saying you escaped justice because you were a PDP chieftain. How will you react to that?
I was in detention for two and half years. If the PDP was interested in the case, I wouldn’t have been there for so long. The process went through due legal channel and the judge, in his wisdom, ruled that the case had no merit. The court ruled that I had no link whatsoever with the death of Chief Ige. For the records, the original advice from the Office of the Director for Public Prosecution was that we should be set free as investigations did not link us with the murder. If the DPP advice had been accepted, may be the real killers of Ige would have been found and prosecuted. It is unfortunate that the politicisation of Chief Ige’s murder did not allow for the tracking and prosecution of real suspects in the murder.
But some reports said it was the Oyo State government that withdrew the case and that you were not cleared of the charges by the court…
That is another misrepresentation by my detractors. The records are there. There was a judgment and we were discharged and acquitted. No case was withdrawn. We were tried, then discharged and acquitted.
But about that time, there was an event in the palace of the Ooni of Ife where the cap of late Chief Ige was removed by those said to be closely linked to you…
For the records, Chief Ige was just an umpire in the crisis in Osun AD at that time. In fact, I met him a week to his death over the Osun AD crisis. The true position is that the day the cap of Chief Ige was removed, I was the deputy governor at hand to receive him which I did with all necessary courtesy. When I was told of the incident, I intervened and ensured that he was safely accompanied out of the venue and city. The Ife incident was like a pattern that has nothing to do with me. Two weeks before then, Chief Ige was attacked in Owo after a meeting. These were local politics of the people which were beyond us. These are facts in public domain. Sincerely, I don’t have anything to do or gain from the death of Chief Ige, but some people are profiting from it.
Are you not worried about the effect of Ige issue on 2014 race….
Our people in Osun know the truth of the case. They know I was framed up due to local politics. They know my detractors did all what they did to stop me in 2003. So the Ige issue cannot stand against me because the truth of my innocence is known to God and man. But the Osun people want good education, sound health care services, caring government, booming local economy and good governance in short. The ACN government has failed on all these counts. These are what I am offering to provide them under a new PDP government.
What would you say you have taken away from the issue as a valuable experience?
The lesson is that I should not take things for granted. My assumption was that truth will come out of it all not knowing that the rumour was doing damages. But I must say with my God as my witness that I have nothing to do with the murder of Chief Ige. The major lesson is to stand up to any issue on time.
*Being Excepts of an interview published in the Nigerian Tribune
