LAGOS — A chieftain of Alliance for Democracy in Ogun State, Otunba Dipo Dina has denied any involvement in the attack on Governor Gbenga Daniel and his wife in Ilaro last Tuesday.
Corroborating the account of former Ogun State governor, Chief Segun Osoba, Otunba Dina noted that the meeting held in Ilaro that day was the Ogun West senatorial district of the AD and since he was not from the district, he was away to Port Harcourt on a business trip when the incident took place.
His words: “On the said date of the meeting, I was in far away Port-Harcourt, Rivers State attending to my business. Attached are photocopies of my tickets: (a) Dassab Airlines Passenger ticket No. 72888, Lagos to Port-Harcourt (10.30am) seat number 4D for 19th October. 2004; (b) ADC Airlines passenger Ticket Number ADK 3253491, Port-Harcourt to Lagos (17.00 hours). Seat number !3 F for 19th October, 2004.”
Otunba Dina explained that the ADC flight was delayed and did not actually touch down at the Murtala Muhammed Airport until 7.30pm on the day.
Otunba Dina denied insinuations by the state government that the crisis was precipitated by the withdrawal of a scheduled chieftaincy title to him by the Olu of Ilaro. He said: “Contrary to the falsehood linking the Ilaro face-off with my aborted chieftaincy title, information at my disposal suggests that the crisis was precipitated by government’s insensitivity to the plight of students and residents of the ancient town occasioned by over two months old power outage.”
The AD chieftain alleged that the PDP and the state government chose to link the crisis to the AD and the aborted chieftaincy title in a bid to set the stage for the 2007 governorship tussle between the two major political parties.
According to him, there is a direct link between the Ilaro incident and an alleged attack on his property at Ijebu-Ode on Wednesday, October 20 “by hoodlums suspected to be agents of the state government who unleashed terror, leaving destruction of my property and commotion at the wake of departure. The hoodlums did not only destroy my property but also fired sporadically, throwing the whole neighbourhood into unspeakable pandemonium.
Otunba Dina contradicted government's claim that no life was lost in the Ilaro incident. He identified one of the dead students as Azeez Sotayo, a 22-year old OND 2 Electrical/Electronics student.
