Sunday Igboho was hired to cause
mayhem in Ekiti state but changed his mind after a meeting with Asiwaju Bola
Ahmed Tinubu.
Babafemi Ojudu, the Special
Adviser on Political Matters to President M. Buhari, revealed this in a
statement titled “The Sunday Igboho I Knew.”
In the statement released on
Monday, Ojudu said Igboho was paid by PDP in 2009, to cause mayhem and
influence the outcome of a rerun election but shunned violence after being
educated on the beauty of democracy and the unencumbered electoral process by
Tinubu.
Ojudu, however, described Igboho
as a man who has an occasional conscience that can be appealed to.
Read the full statement by
Obafemi Ojudu below:
It was in 2009. The Appeal Court
sitting in Ilorin ordered a rerun in a number of polling units in the election
between Segun Oni of PDP and Dr Kayode Fayemi of ACN.
Oni had in the main election and
the election petition tribunal that followed been declared winner of the
gubernatorial contest. Our party, ACN contested this, hence the declaration of
a rerun.
The election which came three
months after the Appeal Court judgment was like war. The PDP ruling at the
Federal level did not want to lose Ekiti while the opposition ACN led and
financed by Bola Ahmed Tinubu wanted to take Ekiti by all means.
A few days to the election, we
got an intelligence report that the PDP big wigs had perfected a plan to
unleash thugs recruited from across Yoruba land on Ekiti. The plan was to kill
and maim as many as possible, snatch ballot boxes and win by any means
possible.
Tinubu summoned me to Lagos and
said Femi, “I have conducted a scientific opinion poll. You people can win this
election. The only snag however is they are deploying state security as well as
thugs against you. State security men we can handle ( and he did creatively
handled them ) but how do you handle thugs?”
I then suggested we dissuade them
by engagement and inducements. After all they are in the business only for the
money and not for ideological reasons.
We reached out to both Ade Basket
in Akure and Fada Geri in Ondo. Both were dreaded in political circles. We had
a series of meetings with them and were able to squeeze an agreement with them
that they will not make themselves available to PDP for hire. I got them to
even sign documents for me that they were going to stay off Ekiti elections.
The biggest headache for us then
was Sunday Igboho who we learned has been hired and paid by a Senator from Osun
to come and cause mayhem in Ekiti. Tinubu instructed we must get him at all
cost.
Six days to the election we began
our search for him. Eventually, we met someone who had his number. I put a call
through to him and he agreed to meet with me in Ibadan. We scheduled an
appointment and had a meeting at a small hotel not far from Premier Hotel.
Tinubu, I told him, has sent me
to him that he will like to have a meeting with him. He said he will love to
meet him as he has heard a lot of good things about him too. The problem he
said is he is PDP and not ACN. I said that precisely is the reason why he
wanted to meet with him. He asked if I could keep this a secret, I said why
not.
Papa Adedibu, and our Osun
Senator, he said must not learn about his meeting Tinubu. I told him there is
no way they will know except it leaks from his side.
He agreed to a meeting on
Thursday preceding the election. I reported back to Tinubu who then relocated
from his base in Lagos to Sunview Hotel in Akure. Igboho drove down alone at
about 10.00 pm. I and Tinubu had a dialogue with him.
“Igboho,”!Tinubu said, “ I have
heard a lot about your bravery. The Ekiti people have suffered too long under
the rule of PDP. They are looking for change. I learnt you have been hired to
make this impossible. I have invited you to plead with you to allow the poll to
be conducted peacefully. If after that the PDP wins fine. If the ACN wins, all
well and good”.
Tinubu went on and on lecturing
him on the beauty of democracy and the unencumbered electoral process. By the
time Tinubu finished with him, he became sober and contrite. “ Baba”, he said,
“ I have heard you and I am pleased with what you have said. Whatever you want
me to do I will do even though I have collected money from the other side”.
This was the extent Tinubu went
to secure Ekiti for his party, ACN. Most of this the candidate, Fayemi, himself
was not even aware of.
Tinubu then beckoned me to follow
him to the bedroom of the suit he occupied in the hotel. “ Femi this guy appear
sincere. It does appear we have dissuaded him.“
“Thank you Baba” Igboho said with
a smile across his face as soon as he received a golden handshake for agreeing
not to destroy Ekiti as they had planned.
He then said that he will be in
Ekiti on the eve of the election but when it is 2.00 am I should put a call
through to him. He will put his phone on speaker and I should tell him I am a
police AIG and that the police has discovered his presence in Ekiti and will be
raiding in 30 minutes’ time. With that call he will tell his minders he can no
longer stay. He will pack his boys and their lethal weapons and leave town.
Tinubu ordered food and drink for
him. He will touch neither. He however overtime became comfortable in our midst
and regaled us with several anecdotes from his career as a political enforcer.
One particular anecdote stayed locked up in my memory till today because it was
so funny.
According to Igboho, he went
through the tutelage of Chief Adedibu, the strong man of Ibadan politics. He
said he was one of his most reliable and trusted thugs. At a point in their
relationship, Adedibu, he said began to suspect he was getting too powerful and
independent. Adedibu, he narrated, then invited him to a meeting and told him
he will like him to run for the chairmanship of a local government.
He said he knew this was an
attempt by Adedibu to bench him and he, therefore, told Adedibu that he was not
educated, not able to speak English, and could therefore not be chairman of a
local government.
Adedibu, he said, looked at him
and barked an order STAND UP! He stood up. “SIT DOWN!” He sat down. Adedibu
then said “and you claim not to be educated. Whatever is left we shall add it
unto you”.
A week before the election, we
had reserved and paid for all the rooms in all the hotels in Ekiti. The money
ran into several millions. Tinubu, as usual, paid for this. The strategy was to
ensure no thug or any undesirable element had a place to stay in the state.
Security men and INEC officials had to appeal to me, sometimes through Tinubu,
to release some rooms to them to stay. With this, we knew who was staying
where. And we closely monitored them and their activities.
Thus, when Igboho and his band of
50 thugs arrived at Ado Ekiti that Friday we were able to monitor them till
they were taken to be accommodated overnight in government house due to lack of
hotel accommodation in the state.
This was the situation when at
2:00 am I did exactly what Igboho instructed me to do and he and his men fled
town.
Two hours after leaving I got a
call from him. They did a headcount and found out two of their men were
missing.
Interestingly, they found out the
two had gone to town in search of women. Igboho pleaded with me to help
retrieve them and get them out of town the following morning.
At about 5.00 am that morning I
picked them up in front of the Fire Station at Fajuyi Park, took them to my
house and by 6.00 am got a driver to take them out of town.
We had the re-run elections. It
wasn’t entirely peaceful. But thuggery and violence was largely reduced.
This was my encounter with Sunday
Adeyemo alias Sunday Igboho, lately crowned a hero in Yoruba land, by the reign
of terror by herders and bandits.
He has that occasional conscience
you can appeal to. Let those who can rein in the herders do so and make the
forests and highways safe again. Let farmers be able to carry out their
occupation without fear of kidnap, murder and rape. Let us find a modern and
permanent solution to this issue of itinerant herding that pitches a group of
Nigerians against the other. Let us not ethnicize criminality. A criminal is a
criminal and a crime is a crime whether perpetrated by Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo,
Ijaw, Junkun, Bachama, or Ibariba.
We should do everything possible
to stave off this crisis and stop beating the drums of war before it reaches a
crescendo.
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I tell you, this is how the presidency want to frustrate his blame of liberating his people from the shakles of tyranny and their minions by pitching his tent against his people and those who are sponsoring him for a good cause
ReplyDeleteIt is very clear that the presidency through Mr Babafemi Ojudu is out to demonize and thug-classify Chief Sunday Igboho. Now, a fellow of his decent calls him a thug setting up a story to discredit his person and reduce him to a common criminal (sic). Chief Ojudu, you are a disgrace and idiotic fellow whose stomach and greed has made you lose your sense of reasoning (sorry if my statement looks insulting, but you acted so).
ReplyDeleteThis attempt is not an unfamiliar one as it is a signature of the the government of the day. A previous and obvious one that readily comes to mind is how they infiltrated the #endsars peaceful protest to make it look like the protest was violent, and to be able to concort the law to prosecute identified and arrested peaceful protesters. There have been several others cases like that.
My advice to YORUBA's is not to allow the lies and deceit of men such as Ojudu and Seyi Makinde obscure the issues on ground. This is because rather than having constructive conversations and addressing the problem that has brought us to this point, the presidency, state authority and police are talking arrest of someone who is out to defend his father's land. How about the visitors causing problems in his father's land? Is the nature of criminality and violence caused by the herdsmen not punishable by the law? The sins against individuals, family, humanity and God are to be left unchecked? What a government? what a group of politician? and what bastard type Yoruba politicians/leaders we have!!!