"STRUCK OUT": Fiona Onasanya

Fiona Onasanya, is a Nigerian, although she never lived in any part of the country. She was born & raised in the UK. She would go on to become a lawyer & a Member of Parliament (MP) in Britain🇳🇬🇬🇧 Her ultimate ambition was anything but ordinary: To become the first black female Prime Minister of her country of birth👸🏻 As things stand, that dream has suffered an abortion, triggered by the eclampsia of zero integrity.😔 The failed delivery started shortly after 10pm on 24 July 2017, when her car was caught on CCTV camera clocking 41mph on the Causeway of Thorney, Cambridgeshire. That area is a 30mph zone. 🚦 Upon investigation, she told the Police that she wasn't the person behind the wheels on the said night. She insisted that it was her brother, Festus Onasanya who was the driver. 💁🏼‍♂️❌ The former Labour MP who rose to the position of party whip, it was found, had connnived with her brother to name one Aleks Antipow, her sibling's former lodger as the driver. Unfortunately, that alibi wasn't water tight. Antipow was with his parents in Russia, 1,800 miles away, at the time of this fateful driving.🙆🏼‍♂️ This string of lies would become the undoing of Onasanya, who was a former commercial property lawyer. At the Old Bailey trial, she was found guilty and jailed for 3 months for perverting the course of Justice, as lying is deemed.🏴‍☠️ Neither did her brother escape the long arm of the law as he bagged 10 months behind bars for making himself available for conspiracy.➿ Promptly, the Labour Party launched a successful recall proceeding & deposed her as an MP for Peterborough.📛 You would have thought she had suffered enough for lying- a routine misdeed for many. But in that event, that wasn't the opinion of the British legal profession umpire! The Solicitors Tribunal held a disciplinary hearing on Onasanya, for lying to evade consequences of speed limit breach. Seemingly remorseless, she arrived the hearing with her mother where she held on to her browbeaten line that she was innocent.💔 In the face of her insistence, the tribunal took the view that she had failed to act with integrity, that she acted dishonestly & failed to maintain the trust the public placed in her♌ The Chair of the 3 member panel, which sat in Central London, Edward Nally summed up the matter this way: "As a parliamentarian makes the law, so a solicitor must uphold the law and rule of law and sadly in this case Ms Onasanya has failed in those duties. We must strike off Onasanya from the roll of solicitors".⚖️ With those words, Onasanya who qualified as a lawyer in November 2015 & worked in the lucrative area of commercial property law before becoming an MP in June 2017, will now seek gainful employment in any profession where integrity is not a critical qualification♐ Lying is an unpassable wrongdoing. This is the message spelt out clearly by the Onasanya experience. On the other hand, the everyday Nigerian might wonder what the big deal is about lying let alone about the speed with which a car was driven. Some others might even ask in sarcasm, 'was anyone killed by the speed?' There goes the mindset that sets integrity alight🙅🏼‍♂️ MSD Reminds U to Act Leaderly & insist that in any event, the standard for leaders, as captured by the solicitors' panel, is MATCHLESS INTEGRITY! EVERYTHING RISES & FALLS ON LEADERSHIP! FOR THOSE WHO DEFEND LIES, THIS IS THEIR FATE IN SANE SOCIETIES.

Oba of Benin lauds Buhari over return of artefacts By Gabriel Enogholase

OBA of Benin, Omo N’Oba Ewuare 11, has commended President Muhammadu Buhari for ordering the Nigerian High Commissioner to Britain to immediately return some of the Benin artworks, which were recently returned by Jesus College, Cambridge and University of Aberdeen, Scotland to the Palace of Oba of Benin. The president’s directive to return the Benin bronzes to the ancient palace of the Oba of Benin was made known by the Secretary of Benin Traditional Council, Frank Irabor, in a statement, yesterday. He disclosed that the handing over of the returned artefacts would take place at the Oba place on December 13, 2021, by 11 a.m. He explained that the event would also be used to mark the 5th anniversary of Oba Ewaure 11 on his ascension to the throne of his forebears, which was shifted in honour of late Captain Hosa Okunbo. He said: “The general public is, hereby, invited to join his royal majesty in receiving the Benin bronze cast of Okpa ‘Cockerel’ and Benin bronze burst of an Oba both from Jesus College, Cambridge, England and University of Aberdeen, Scotland. “His royal majesty Benin royal family and the good people of Edo State thank the president for this directive. “This further shows that the Federal Government is the only constitutional authority to receive in custody Benin bronzes and other artefacts before being sent to their original owner, the Oba of Benin, which were recently repatriated from Jesus College, Cambridge and University of Aberdeen, Scotland to the palace of Oba of Benin.”

Reviewed: What Britain Did to Nigeria by Max Siollun. By Paddy Kehoe

Historian Max Siollun asks three questions in his fascinating new study: Why did Britain come to Nigeria? What did Britain do to Nigeria? And how did the local people react to British presence? The answers are absorbing. It is, to say the least, a complex story, but Siollun gets to the heart of it, offering a cogent analysis of the development of slavery and the lucrative trade in rubber, in palm oil as well as the livestock and cereals industries and the wholesale exploitation involved. He also pays attention to the Christian missionary endeavour which was particularly challenging when it began in Nigeria. Islam, for instance, did not require polygamous people to jeopardise their family lives by divorcing. Conversion to Christianity was markedly more difficult than vice versa. Rivalries and tensions between the various exploiting forces, and the deeper-rooted tensions between the different ethnic groups are integral and fundamental aspects of the story. Slavery existed before the arrival of the Europeans, and the more enterprising could make notable progress in their lives and careers, albeit against terrible odds. One of the leading chiefs in Southern Nigeria was Jaja of Opobo, a slave who eventually became one of the most powerful figures in his region. Many of the emirs who ruled northern Nigeria were the sons of slave women. The first British ships to reach the land that would later be named Nigeria were led by one Captain Windham. He arrived in the Bight of Benin in 1553. He was taken aback to say the least when he learned that interaction between the Portuguese and the people of Benin was so advanced that the oba or king of Benin actually spoke Portuguese. The Nigerian capitol city Lagos Windham remained in Nigeria, but he and many expedition members subsequently died from illness or excessive drinking. Only forty of the original 140 members of his expedition survived to make the return journey to Britain. The colonisers were often violent marauders who worked their slaves literally to death. Shootings, hangings, rape, floggings and torture were commonplace. The Royal Niger Company, which was most influential between 1885 and 1914, had in its employ at one point a certain Captain Christian. He once detained a native woman, stripped her and covered her body in tar. There seemed little appreciation of the effect such appalling treatment had on the natives, writes Siollun in one of his characteristically understated sentences. The theme of resistance to the British is accorded three chapters alone. The country became independent in 1960, after which the British Empire part-shrank by fifty per cent and African's independent population doubled. In the near future, the historian confidently predicts that Nigeria will become the country with the third-largest English-speaking population in the world. The country at that point will have more English speakers and Christians than the UK, the very country which exported the English language and Christianity to Nigeria in the first instance. A BBC journalist once asked a school headteacher in the Nigerian town of Hadejia the following question in 2010: Would he wish that the British had stayed? He replied as follows: 'Yes, it would have been better.’ He added, moreover, that he would not mind if the British would ‘come back again’ to rule Nigeria. The background to how answers such as this one came to seem reasonable - and indeed very different answers to the same question - are investigated with skill and erudition by Max Siollun in this compelling work which runs to just over 370 pages, with maps, illustrations and photographs.

Strike’ll be indefinite, won’t end until all agreements are fulfilled – ASUU. by Adeyinka Adedipe and Ikenna Obianeri

ASUU President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke The Academic Staff Union of Universities, Owerri Zone, has threatened a total showdown with the Federal Government over the non-implementation of the 2009 agreement. The union said during a press conference at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, on Monday that it would embark on an indefinite strike as “the magnanimity of ASUU that resulted in various MOUs and MOAs arising from the 2009 agreement has been spurned by the Federal Government.” Leaders of the union from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State University, Owerri, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam and Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, were in attendance. Addressing journalists, the ASUU Zonal Coordinator, Mr Uzo Onyebinama, explained that some lecturers are being owed as much as 10 months’ salary. “As we speak now, the Federal Government is in arrears of major components of the agreement, and that includes funding for the revitalization of public universities, earned academic allowances, and the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement. “The consequences of the Federal Government’s refusal to implement the 2009 agreement is that the union has resolved to go on an indefinite strike any moment and once it begins, it will not stop until all agreements are fulfilled.” Also, ASUU Benin Zone, has said the impending strike by the nation’s university lecturers is a last resort to draw government attention to their plights and not to derail academic activities. The zonal Coordinator of the Benin Zone ASUU, Prof. Fred Esumeh, stated this in Benin, Edo State. Esumeh said, “Strike is less frequent in the western world because their governments act. But here in Nigeria, you have to go on strike frequently before government can act.” The zonal coordinator, who described members’ remuneration as slave wage, demanded a new condition of service. He said, “The Nigerian universities are no longer attractive to foreign lecturers, including those from neighbouring countries. “This is due to the prevailing slave wage where the highest ranked professor earns less than a thousand dollars monthly.” PUNCH.

Nigeria's Chief Of Defence Staff, Irabor Asks 50 Military Generals To Quit Service. BY SAHARAREPORTERS

The officers cut across the Nigerian Air Force, the Nigerian Army and the Nigerian Navy; around 25 of the senior officers are in the army. The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Leo Irabor has ordered 50 Generals in the Nigerian military to tender their resignation with immediate effect. According to Daily Post, the officers cut across the Nigerian Air Force, the Nigerian Army and the Nigerian Navy; around 25 of the senior officers are in the army. An impeccable source stated that Irabor gave the directive at the Defence Headquarters in Abuja on Monday. At a 2pm meeting, the CDS thanked them for their service and told all present that it was high time they left office. But the Course 36 Generals still had more than three years before their retirement. “They are about 50; two of them in the Army will retire in 2022, while the rest have about three and half years left in service”, the source revealed. Another source wondered why the Armed Forces were eager to ease out scores of capable and experienced hands at a time the country is battling insecurity. Ironically, Irabor recently intervened in the 2016 forceful retirement of 38 Nigerian Army officers via a letter (Ref. No. CDS/8/A) to the Minister of Defence, Bashir Magashi, a retired Major-General. They were asked to go in June 2016, an action described as arbitrary by those affected, security personnel, experts and Nigerians. Till date, the military and the federal government are yet to comply with extant court judgments ordering the officers’ reabsorption. In January 2020, Justice Rukiya Hasstrup at National Industrial Court in Abuja faulted the Army decision and directed their reinstatement. In May 2020, Justice Edith Agbakoba approved that contempt of court charge is filed against the military chiefs for failing to comply with a valid order.

NIGERIA: TARGETED FOR DESTRUCTION by Gordon Duff

@Gabadaya Editor’s Note: For Nigerians who want to have an insight on the failure of the war on terror in Nigeria pre-Buhari, read this article written in 2011 by Gordon Duff, a Senior Editor with Veterans Today.

For Those Who Have Ears to Hear I won’t write about Nigeria as a journalist. I am known in Nigeria as a national security specialist with decades of experience there. I have close personal friends at the highest levels of government and only write these few words out of deep concern. For those reading the news about Africa, both of you, Nigeria is under terrorist attack and preparing military operations against a group called Boko Haram, an Islamic group from the North, more accurately centered in Niger, a nation to the north, a cesspool of international intrigue. From Veterans Today’s London correspondent, a specialist on African affairs: The article was well written and thoroughly researched although it didn’t go far enough in identifying dealing with the greed of certain establishment figures that may directly or indirectly be involved in some of the atrocities committed by Boko Haram. 1. The security of the presidency and the entire nation has been greatly compromised by the activities of certain individuals very close to the presidency. 2. It is common knowledge that the president of Nigeria is not protected at all and you can get at him at any time in or out of his residence. 3. The security around him is a joke to say the least, contrary to the views of certain individuals around the president. 4. The issues of government by settlement which had long plagued Nigeria are the orders of the day now where certain individuals are asking for colossal sums of money from certain security consultants to provide training and security equipment to the government. 5. One individual in particular has been known to collect huge sums of money from these outfits currently parading themselves as security consultants in Abuja 6. The level of cover and protection given the president and his family is simply laughable and nonexistent Why has the country been compromised??? It is widely known that certain foreign elements are providing security to the president and providing his current security details. What a joke, you might say. These same foreign elements are the same who have sold outdated equipment to the government and are going around Abuja installing CCTV and bomb detection equipment around the capitol, technology decades old. Huge sums of money have changed hands for second rate equipment The government pays for a Rolls Royce car but gets a VW Beetle instead!! Why is there so much fear and apprehension among Nigerians that the government can no longer protect its citizens? What are the costs expended so far on security equipment and the so called security consultants? Why have certain individuals collected bribe money to award these security contracts at over inflated figures? Now, this is one example of several of how corruption is endemic and goes to the heart of government. You may wonder who stands to benefit from these contracts at the expense of the security of the president, the presidency and the nation. The answers to these questions lie within the presidency itself because of the acts of these individuals in the last few weeks. There are no real interests to control the activities of Boko Haram because of the vested interests of certain foreign governments in collusion with their agents in the present administration and the country. To some in government, this is another tool to control certain individuals. Most Nigerians are cowards, anyway. Kill a few “Nigerians,” “Christians” and make it look like christ6ianity against Islam to provoke a reaction from Nigerians. If you get no reaction, kill a few more or go after prime targets to grab headlines. Again, you may ask yourself, who stands to gain when there are terror scares in the country? Nigerians are highly intelligent and resourceful people and can put an immediate end to all of these happenings when their own status is on the line and their livelihood is at stake or threatened. Nigeria has not gotten to that point yet but may soon reach the point of no return. Sources within the Intel community have confirmed that Boko Haram is getting Intel assistance from senior Nigerian intelligence officials. To these officials, this is a means to an end. The danger here is that a monster has been created which sooner or later may go out of control of their political masters. Certain people are benefiting financially from the current security situation in the country, from inflated security contracts. One such individual from within the presidency recently placed orders from a North American and Middle East country located near Tel Aviv. What is the cost of a Nigerian life (Mr.) and how much is it worth to you sir? This is the public version of things anyway. However, outside forces are at play, concerns “from afar” best described in a fictional context. H. G. Wells described it best in his science fiction novel, War of the Worlds. “No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter… It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days…Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.” Thus, fiction again becomes reality, not an enemy from space but one of terrestrial origin, unnamed but recognized by all who see the lands laid waste. This organization, call it “globalist” if you want, began orchestrating war in Yemen a bit ago after failing to set war against Iran into motion through incidents in Bahrain and the Persian Gulf. The “Al Qaeda franchise” in Yemen represents an “understanding” between the current government, the CIA and Mossad to create a simulated terrorist environment as “deception and cover” for a series of other activities in the region. There is now, nor has there ever been an organized “pan-Islamic” terrorist presence in Yemen though one has been “simulated” through misleading reports, “false flag” terror and a theatre of “counter-terrorist” activities, drone attacks and such, for no purpose other than to provide a base of operations for a global criminal enterprise. What we are seeing now in Nigeria is part of the same strategy, one that has included attacks on a physical scale, currency manipulation and now a staged move against Africa, which will be combined with attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities of the Arab Spring, new players, new governments and new greed. Key Nigerians ripe for bribery are making this possible. They are aware they are bringing about the destruction of their own nation, they simply don’t care. The attitude there is “every man for himself.” Another way of describing those currently in power, including and especially officials in counter-terrorism and security is “rats abandoning a sinking ship.” In all fairness, the U.S. has a similar elitist clique of politicians, special interest multi-nationals, some of whom have their own intelligence resources that rival most countries. The terror group, Boko Haram, is real but in its current formation, it is a proxy of outside powers who plan to Balkanize Nigeria, simply another domino to fall as have so many others. As with any group seeking redress, Boko Haram has been hijacked and is now being directed from within, from without as is the Nigerian government that will be fighting it. What is playing out, though all are ready to “go through the motions” otherwise, is far more about drugs than anything else. The Nigerians don’t yet know this or those hands that are out would be more aggressive. Nigeria, a great playing field, largest in Africa, is the southern flank of an operation that is much more than simply stolen oil revenue and inscrutable games about gas pipelines that never come online. Drugs are perfection. If you produce narcotics, you control the land, if you transit narcotics, you control the authorities, if you sell narcotics, you control the courts, the police and, of course, the government itself. Arms and oil count, money is still worth counterfeiting, oil worth stealing but all this is so “yesterday.” The real world struggle today is narco-driven, fought from the Kyber Pass to the Mexico-Arizona border and all lands in between. Nigerians who think “tribal” or “ethnic” will die “regional” and “global,” perhaps by the millions. This is all little but theatre. The US bought a ticket to a play staged in Afghanistan and has found themselves unable to find the exit. This one will be quieter as this is Africa, it will be black people killing black people. Few will notice, fewer will care. Those with a stake notice, they care, but their agenda has no room for human life. Nigeria is a tinderbox beyond imagination. Decades old hatreds and fears are closer to the surface here than even in the Balkans. This is a very dangerous game some have chosen to begin. Were they available, and who is to say they aren’t, Nigerians would gleefully use nuclear weapons to settle domestic differences. Nigeria, is, in itself, a construct that never should have existed. The North is Muslim, the South is Christian, each side having nearly 100 million people and neither half is united in any way. Nigeria is a ripe plum for those who recognize such things and recognizing such things is how predators have come to dominate world affairs. The history after colonial occupation is one of military dictatorship and corruption at levels unimaginable. Nigeria is Africa, the most populace country, the most oil and gas wealth, the greatest economic potential, the biggest potential market. Thus, Nigeria is a target. A note from a friend in the region choosing to weigh in with information generally not for public consumption: “We can take down French AQIM without any problem to be honest but Boko Haram are tribes and clans, they are offered drugs, money etc… far far from Islam but at the origin it was an Islamic party infiltrated by the English, French and financed by the “narcos” linked to the CIA, DEA etc… … who are landing their planes full of drugs in Niger, Mali, Mauritania, north of Nigeria, Chad in the desert… around 4 billions a year transit in this region… …then up through Morocco, Polisario, Spain and then Europe and through Tunisia, Libya-Algeria border through Italy, or Greece depending which recipient networks… Ben Ali , king of Morocco, Polisario Front, Algerian zionists are deeply involved in this dirty business, same for migrants, exactly the same people… Boko Haram in charge of Nigeria up to Libya and south of Tunisia, with Touaregs…” For those unaware, and those who wonder why Saif Gaddafi is where he is, those who choose to be fed the superficial view of a region maps show as only empty desert, I hope this is found to be “enriching.” For others, it is exposure I hope they find disturbing. Those in power know I laid out their fate. I told them when the bombings would start, what type, I was even right about the first target, exactly right. I figured what I would do and it happened. I figured what I would do if I were the head of a foreign intelligence agency planning to take over security operations for the government by making the new president appear vulnerable, powerless and then exploiting divisions in the country in order to start two decades of extremely profitable war. In the process, side can be played against side, crooked politicians can keep the decision making apparatus paralyzed and the country can be turned into a terrorist battleground, leading to the long awaited civil war while being bled dry. I laid the whole thing out. Two foreign governments are involved, I named them. I told my friends that Abuja would soon look like Islamabad, cameras, check points, troops, that was the first part of the destabilization plan. This is being done as we speak. Real nation building is not in the cards, only rape and destruction, debt and more debt. I saw it done, more carefully, to the United States. It isn’t the same crew, not entirely, but many of the same actors are involved. First they began by blocking the new president from assuming real power, buying off key political and military leaders. Then a phony terror campaign was begun, like the one the US saw with 9/11. Then “they” arrived with solutions. At the same time, “they,” who have been working with the terror groups for years, are building an “Al Qaeda” type organization that will be able to dart across borders and carefully orchestrate a pattern of destabilization using the same contractors that are going to be paid millions to help put in place security apparatus to protect the country. This happened in America, in a way at least. It is a plan long in motion. Nigerians are ripe for civil war, angry, divided, fed up with abuse. One minor offshoot of the decision making and policy formulation we are seeing is the utter and total destruction of Nigeria’s economic and commercial viability. It is being erased from the maps of boardrooms across the world as a potential place of business, of development, of wealth creation, from Beijing to Zurich and places beyond. Christian Nigeria is being set up, not just to fight a “terror group” in the North but to take on all of Islamic Africa, to draw them into a war that will bring more players, America, for one, into another endless cesspool. Yemen was the model. Simple tribal misunderstandings became tribal conflict and then, through careful orchestration, bushels of bribe money and false flag terrorism, which Nigeria has already been dosed with, Yemen became the stronghold of an imaginary Al Qaeda cell. Soon Nigeria will enjoy the sight of armed UAVs, piloted from, just perhaps, Tel Aviv, theoretically there to punish terrorists. Pakistan will explain it to you if you care to listen. UAV attacks are how terrorists are recruited, how wars are instigated and how the disjointed and unsettled are turned into an enemy camp. The presentations have been made and the purchase orders await only the promised “backhanders” or as we call it here, “kickbacks” to be executed. Nigeria, I love the damned country, my friends there which include those who theoretically rule the country, if such a thing were possible. It is not. What I did do is lay out a plan for the first hundred days that would have prevented this. In order to accomplish this, one would have to overcome a corrupt government, meaning that one would have to assume near dictatorial powers and turn to the people, all the people, for support. One would have to deliver on promises of electrical power, police reform, refinancing debt, so many things. There were two choices, one was to build a nation and the other was to react and become the victim of a plot long stewing in two capitols far away. The desire for a civil war, something so many want in Nigeria, have waited for, has allowed them, the government, the people, to become what they fear most, slaves in their own nation. Nigeria isn’t Libya. It has a population 15 times that of Libya. Nigeria is Africa. Saving Nigeria was vital to world stability, something only a select few know. Destroying Nigeria was vital to world entropy, something only a select few know also. Even fewer know that Nigerian security is considered an area of “clear and present danger” to the United States, or to term it differently for others, an area of “vital national interest.” Our armies enjoy joint exercises yearly, Nigeria is the lynchpin of America’s African policy for the next 25 years. The destabilzation of Nigeria is part and parcel to the destabilization of America’s position in the world, one more thing making Nigeria attractive. America has spent decades making enemies and Nigeria is a way of helping bury America as is Afghanistan. Who would wish such a thing? Get a map and figure it out. As we speak, planeloads of bomb detection equipment is coming in from the same people who built the car bombs in the first place. War is being planned with the help of those who organized and armed the enemy. Enough people were there who remember it all being laid out, how it would be done. Predicting this didn’t take genius, not hardly. I had seen it all before, so many times. The plots spoken of as against Libya are very real but Egypt and Nigeria are the primary targets, taking the place of Iran, a nation that has been more resourceful than expected. Were it taught, which it is not, we would call it history. _________________________ Follow GABADAYA @gabadayanews on Twitter or send mails to gabadayanews@gmail.com

How Obasanjo tried to implicate me in Bola Ige's murder ― Akande

•Says Omisore paid for his nomination form, but troubled him diabolical double-cross perpetratedView pictures in App save up to 80% data. In his tell-all autobiography, “My Participations”, former Osun State governor, Chief Bisi Akande recounted the early hours of the murder of his political leader and then sitting Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige, noting the indicting salvo then President Olusegun Obasanjo fired at him. The yet-to-be-solved murder of the country’s Chief Law Officer took place in his Ibadan residence on December 22, 2001. Akande’s book which accused many top political operators of sundry misdemeanours and in some cases, outright crimes, is already generating ripples and reactions. Recalling the moments the news of Ige’s murder was made known to him, the former interim national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) wrote, “When we arrived at the Government House, I gathered my entourage together and broke the tragic news to them. There was an uproar – groaning and moaning and general confusion. Someone suggested we should pray. We bowed down our heads and prayed. By the time the prayer ended, I noticed that the Commissioner of Police was now with us. “He had walked into the centre gingerly and was now standing close to me. Before we greeted, his phone started ringing. He gave me the phone. It was President Obasanjo on the other end. “Now you see the lapses in your security! Look at what happened to Bola Ige!’ The President was shouting at the other end. I was enraged at him. “You must be out of your mind Mr. President! How can you say lapses in my security when Bola Ige was killed in Ibadan? I rule in Osun State! I am not the Governor of Oyo State! When his cap was removed at the Ife palace during your wife’s chieftaincy ceremony, what did you do about it?’ “Obasanjo cut the line. I gave the CP back his phone. Everyone was silent except those who were weeping silently. Few minutes later, Obasanjo called back on my own line. He started sermonising. ‘You know that Bola Ige too was my friend! What happened was very unfortunate!’ “It occurred to me that what concerned the President more was not to arrest the assassins of his friend but to prevent social unrest and calm the nerves of the popular. I told him we would take necessary measures to prevent a breakdown of law and order.” Speaking further on the first 24 hours of the assassination, Akande who was Osun governor then, said, “There was enough evidence that the government of President Obasanjo was reluctant to find the killers of Bola Ige. A day after the assassination I was with Governor Lam Adesina and other governors at the Government House, Ibadan, when I received a phone call from Major-General Abdullahi Mohammed, the Chief of Staff to the President. “Mohammed, a former military governor, was also former head of the Nigerian Security Organisation (NSO), the precursor of the SSS and later Directorate of State Services, DSS. He was regarded as a strong pillar of the Obasanjo presidency. He invited me to come and talk to the President and that a plane had been dispatched to the airport in Ibadan to fly me to Abuja. I said I was not interested in talking to the President.” In the book, former senator and Akande’s estranged deputy when in office, Iyiola Omisore got a generous mention, but possibly the most-hit. Speaking about how he became acquainted with the Ife politician and ending up with him on the defunct AD joint governorship ticket, the former chairman of Afenifere in Osun State, narrated how Omisore paid for his nomination form, before allegedly becoming a thorn in his (Akande’s) flesh. “When I left the meeting (where he was picked as the AD consensus candidate for Osun governor), I was apprehensive. I went to my cousin’s pharmacy shop in Osogbo. I was there in Igbona area when Sola Akinwunmi and Omisore came in. They were able to trace me because they saw my car. They said I had to take an application to our leader, Senator Abraham Adesanya, in Lagos. It was a Saturday and we were asked to pay in bank draft N250,000.00 fee for our nomination form. “I did not know the rule and had not such money; and even if I could raise it, it had to be during the working days of the week. To my surprise, Akinwunmi said Omisore had already bought the bank draft and he gave it to me. It was during the period of serious fuel scarcity, but Omisore also volunteered his car with full fuel tank, to take me to Lagos immediately. He said another provision had been made for fuel in Lagos. “Iyiola Omisore crept into my life like a silent malignant cancer. He came in full force. In a few months, I thought I knew him. I regret I did not know him in his true colours. “Thereafter, having committed myself to Otunba Iyiola Omisore, I began to rebuff all subsequent protests against his choice. The first was from Mr. Moji Akinfenwa. He accused me of not consulting him before picking Omisore as my running mate. The second was by Chief Ayo Fasanmi, my political godfather who was the AD National Vice-Chairman and a long-standing friend to Chief Bola Ige. “He wrongly held Chief Bola Ige responsible for my decision such that he had to withdraw his support for Bola Ige’s nomination for the presidency at the D’Rovan conclave. “It was part of my immediate problems after the election that Sola Akinwunmi who seemed to have had a very soft and kind disposition for Iyiola Omisore began to alert me about Omisore’s disloyalty.” Tribune