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24 years after: Akande opens up on Bola Ige’s killers

…says ‘I begged ex-AGF not to resign from govt’

Former interim chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Bisi Akande, has claimed that the Nigerian government was responsible for the assassination of the country’s former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige.

Akande made this revelation while recounting how a mutual friend, Oluwole Rotimi, had warned that Ige’s life would be at risk if he resigned from former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.

Speaking on Edmund Obilo’s podcast, State Affairs, the former Osun State governor maintained that Ige had the backing of Afenifere and the now-defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD) before accepting a ministerial role under Obasanjo.

On Ige’s decision to step down, Akande recalled: “One evening, he called me and said he was going to resign from this government tomorrow. It was sudden, and I said, ‘Please sir, I will come back to you.’ I called Oluwole Rotimi, and this is what your friend told me: that he was going to resign from Obasanjo’s government tomorrow.

“He asked me to advise him not to resign because if he does, he is likely going to die—he said that to me on the phone. I called Uncle (Ige) and begged him not to resign.

“He said he had talked to Wole Soyinka and Bola Tinubu, and both of them said he should resign. But I said, ‘Don’t. You can go to Obasanjo, tell him what you are angry about, and if he doesn’t want you anymore, here is your letter.’”

Addressing Ige’s level of trust in Obasanjo, Akande remarked: “Since he was resigning from his government, I think he stopped trusting him.”

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When pressed on who was responsible for Ige’s killing, Akande stated: “I don’t know. He was killed in Oyo State while I was ruling in Osun State. The government killed him (Bola Ige). It was a state murder.

“Lam Adesina, who was the Chief Security Officer of Oyo State then, went to court, and Ladoja withdrew the case from court. He might know more and be able to tell you.

“It was the government that killed him, and the government can kill anybody.

“Obasanjo wasn’t keen about Ige’s death; he was more interested in the stability of himself.”

Ige, a senior political figure and one-time governor of old Oyo State, was assassinated in his Ibadan home on 23 December 2001, a killing that remains unresolved to date.

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24 years after: Akande opens up on Bola Ige’s killers

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