Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, on Thursday, expressed willingness to be involved in legal proceedings to unravel the killers of a former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige.
Soyinka on Saturday in a statement said the resumption of an investigation into Ige’s murder was already hamstrung and disrobed of credibility with the emergence of a prime suspect in the case as the National Secretary of the ruling All Progressive Congress.
A former deputy governor of Osun State, Chief Iyiola Omisore, emerged the party’s national secretary at the 2022 national convention of the APC held from March 26 to 27, where 77 national officers emerged.
In 2002, he was arraigned for Ige’s murder but later acquitted alongside 10 others tried for the case.
Omisore, who replied to Soyinka’s position in a statement, also instructed his lawyer to write the elder statesman demanding a retraction of the comments.
Ige, also an ex-governor of old Oyo State, was assassinated by suspected gunmen at his Bodija, Ibadan, Oyo State, home on December 23, 2001.
The playwright spoke at a media interaction in Lagos titled, “Forget the past, forfeit the future: A nation seceding from humanity.”
He decried the rising insecurity in the country leading to killings, kidnappings and violence in several states.
Soyinka said a man decaped a respected minister and threw the cap to thugs, noting that such an action led to other actions.
“That doesn’t mean you were responsible for the person’s death. But certain actions led to other actions,” he added.
The essayist stated 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.
He noted, “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.”
In his reaction, a human rights lawyer, Chief Femi Falana, SAN, who said the killers of Ige must be found, noted that Soyinka had reminded the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), 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.”