Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan
Former Military Governor of defunct Western Region, Brigadier Oluwole Rotimi (rtd), has berated the police authority in the country over the failure to unmask the killers of the former Attorney General and Minister of Justice of the Federation, Chief Bola Ige.
This was just as he denied warning Ige of consequences should he quit the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Ige, a former governor of old Oyo State, was assassinated in his Bodija, Ibadan residence in December 2021.
His death has since generated controversies in the country with former Osun State governor, Chief Bisi Akande, a few weeks ago raising fresh concerns about the unresolved assassination, stating that former Oyo State Governor, Senator Rasheed Ladoja, may have vital information regarding the murder.
But Ladoja in a statement accused Akande of lying against him as he has nothing to hide regarding Ige’s death, adding that he gave all necessary support for the prosecution of the case even to the apex court.
However the former army general while speaking with journalists in Ibadan to commemorate his 90th birthday, noted that if the successive leadership of the police force were sincere in their quest, they ought not to have limited their investigations to the security aides of Ige.
Rotimi said he believed that necessary steps were not taken by the police before taking the case to court, stating that if anybody should come to court with disjointed story it would be a difficult task to expect true judgement from the judge.
According to him, though he has no information beyond what the government was saying about the murder of Ige, that does not mean he was convinced with the way the case went.
Reacting to claims that he said there would be consequences if Ige should leave Obasanjo’s government, the nonagenarian said he only advised the former Attorney General of the Federation not to walk out of the government as doing so will personally ridicule Obasanjo.
He said, “I expect government then to dig deep into what happened. If you limit your investigation right from the beginning, there are other facts that were hanging around which nobody thought about.
“I feel sorry, both for Bola Ige, who was assassinated, and Nigerians who looked up to this man as a leader, but there was nothing personally I could do.
“This great man, Bola Ige was assassinated. Within hours of him returning back to his Ibadan home, then his security, which composed of a number of people, took permission to go and have dinner.
“And how all of them left at the same time, I don’t know. But that action exposed Chief Bola Ige to danger. But there you are, his security was not around. His enemies, they were around.
“Now, if that is so, what the government did after his assassination, I believe, was not good enough. That’s the way I think and I feel.”
