Soyinka raised alarm over the safety of the former Minister of Power and Steel, Olu Agunloye following his remand in the Kuje Correctional Centre.
By Jeffrey Agbo
Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, has raised alarm over the safety of the former Minister of Power and Steel, Olu Agunloye, who was on Wednesday remanded in the Kuje Correctional Centre.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arraigned Agunloye before the Federal High Court in Abuja over allegations of fraud in the Mambilla Power Project.
The ex-minister pleaded not guilty to the charges.
However, the presiding judge, Justice Donatus Okorowu, ordered that the minister be remanded in Kuje correctional facility pending when bail would be granted.
Reacting to this in a statement made available to TheNiche, Soyinka, who earlier condemned the EFCC for declaring Agunloye wanted even when the latter was not in hiding, expressed concern that Agunloye might, in the Kuje facility, suffer the same fate as Bola Ige who was assassinated in December 2001.
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“Dr. Olu Agunloye, we learn, was finally charged to court today. The case was adjourned, and the presiding judge, in his or her wisdom, proceeded to remand the accused in Kuje prison, pending resumption of his case,” the renowned playwright wrote.
“I wish to alert the nation, and the government that there exists a justifiable, high-level concern for his safety. His predecessor in office, the late Chief Bola Ige, was murdered in his bedroom by professional assassin even while his police protection detail took time off, all at the same time, to a nearby eatery. Till today, those mystery killers have yet to be identified, arrested, and tried.
“I have made it clear, even as recently as a few weeks ago, that Bola Ige’s murder was not unconnected with the Mambilla scam. Olu Agunloye worked closely with me, both within and outside routine police motions, to unmask Ige’s killers. It would therefore amount to unpardonable complacency to propose that there are no forces sufficiently desperate to accord him the same fate as Bola Ige. That goal is made easier by the abrupt decision to remand him in prison.
“I have called for an independent, non-partisan commission to probe at length and in-depth, in public sittings, this scandal of expanding dimensions that has crippled the energy needs of a nation of two hundred million citizens over the past two decades. The latest development is sinister and alarming.”
Soyinka concluded, “Let it be understood that if anything happens to this pivotal witness while in custody, the inference will be heard loud, clear, and unambiguous.”