Police release Owu kingmakers
By Chesa Chesa
(Abuja),
Benson Agwu (Benin
City)
and Segun Adeleye
(Abeokuta)
At exactly 11:10 a.m.
on Tuesday, the police loosened their grip on the four arrested Owu kingmakers
and, in the process, explained that they had been incarcerated to prevent an
outbreak of violence.
Rufus Onifade, Ramon
Ogunbiyi, Subiaru Olaifa and O. Akinpelu were not allowed to speak with the
press, but there were indications that they were released on conditions.
The talk of the town
was that President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is also the traditional Prime
Minister of Owu, instigated their arrest for disagreeing with him over the
selection of the new Olowu.
This, the All Nigeria
Peoples Party (ANPP) in Edo State has picked on, describing it as yet another
sign of Obasanjo’s intolerance of dissent, despite the President’s
denial of the allegation on Tuesday.
Secretary to the Ogun
State Government (SSG) Tunji Isola led Information and Strategy Commissioner
Niran Malaolu to sign their bail forms at the police station, after which the
kingmakers left for Isola’s house in a bus marked OG 149 AQ.
They spent over an
hour at his official quarters without any of them willing to discuss what
transpired.
But Malaolu said:
“The state government will stop at nothing to ensure peace in Owu, we
shall also continue to appeal to indigenes of the town as peace lovers and
distinguished Nigerians not to drag the President’s name in the
mud”.
A statement by Police
Commissioner Olusegun Efutayo said the police were not in any way involved in
the Owu chieftaincy affair.
In it, he said:
“The command’s attention has been drawn to the media reports over
the police involvement in Owu chieftaincy matter and wish to inform the public
that the police is not in any way involved in the Owu chieftaincy affair.
“What happened
on Sunday 15th August was a breakdown of law and order leading to the
vandalisation and destruction of property of prominent Owu indigenes hence the
arrest of some suspects who are connected with the incident”.
Despite their release,
the ANPP in Edo State condemned the government clampdown on the kingmakers,
describing it as a shame on the nation.
The party, in a
statement on Tuesday, signed by Godwin Erhahon, said their arrest on Monday,
purportedly on the order of Obasanjo, has further exposed the degeneracy of the
Presidency under the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
The ANPP stated that
Obasanjo, who reportedly tore the result sheet of the selection of a new Olowu
because it did not
favour his candidate, has now misused his power as President to persecute his
fellow kingmakers, a “most shameful and selfish act of
victimisation” ever demonstrated by a ruler in Nigeria.
The statement read in
part: “The All Nigerian
Peoples Party, therefore, condemns this shameful act, which is indisputably
unbecoming of a President who also claims to be the leader of Africa.
“It becomes more
disturbing when it is recalled that about two years ago, President Obasanjo
also reportedly used the police to subdue some community leaders who opposed
his forceful acquisition of their land for his proposed private university in
the Badagry areas of Lagos State”.
The party explained
that the President is guilty of bad faith, abuse of power and crude violation
of the freedom of expression of the kingmakers. “Mr. President has
demonstrated that he is averse and allergic to free and fair election and
therefore not a democrat”.
It called on world
leaders to prevail on the “Nigerian dictator-in-mufti to resign and
return home for a full-time village politics, having lost the qualities of a
democrat and national leader”.
However, in his
defence, Obasanjo denied having any hand in the arrest of the kingmakers.
His spokesperson Remi
Oyo insisted in Abuja on Tuesday that her boss could not have engaged in such
an act.
“No, I have told
you that the President of the federal republic has nothing to do with the
arrest of any chief. And I think the best person to ask is the Ogun State
commissioner of police or Ogun State Governor Gbenga Daniel who is the chief
security officer of the state. I will not say more than I have said”, she
said.
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