Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka has expressed willingness to be involved in legal proceedings to unravel the killers of a former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Bola Ige.
Ige, an ex-governor of old Oyo State, was assassinated by suspected gunmen at his Bodija, Ibadan, Oyo State, home on December 23, 2001.
Soyinka had in a statement last Saturday, noted that the emergence of Iyiola Omisore, a prime suspect in the murder case of late Ige as the National Secretary of the ruling All Progressive Congress has raised questions over President- Muhammadu Buhari’s pledge to reopen the investigation into the case.
Omisore, who replied to Soyinka’s position in a statement, also instructed his lawyer to write the Nobel Laureate demanding a retraction of the comments.
Omisore, a former deputy governor of Osun State, recently emerged as APC’s national secretary at the 2022 national convention, held from March 26 to 27, where 77 national officers emerged.
The prime suspect was in 2002, arraigned for Ige’s murder but later acquitted alongside 10 others tried for the case.
Soyinka made the remark on Thursday, at a media interaction in Lagos, titled, “Forget the past, forfeit the future: A nation seceding from humanity.”
He decried the increasing rate of insecurity in the country leading to killings, kidnappings and violence in several states.
According to Soyinka, “That doesn’t mean you were responsible for the person’s death. But certain actions led to other actions.”
He maintained that such a person should be made an envoy if the party desired to give him a post but not make him secretary of a ruling party.
Soyinka stated, “We are talking of the party of those in charge of the governance and justice of this country. The leadership of APC and, I am not talking of Buhari alone, do you have to unleash scorpions on our memory? It is not Soyinka who provided this. It’s those who were so insensitive, who rubbed that murder in our faces. I will be delighted to go to court so that we can go into details. I ask the APC leadership to have a rethink because the issue will not go away.”
Also, in his reaction, a human rights lawyer, Chief Femi Falana, SAN, who said the killers of Ige must be found, stressed that Soyinka had reminded President Buhari, of his pledge to open an enquiry into the country’s spate of political murders.
Falana noted, “If you are sued, we will represent you free of charge because you are taking on a public issue.”
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