Blame Game Over A Bomb Blast   

Published on August 30, 2010 by TheNEWS   ·   1 Comment

Accusations and counter-accusations over the 2007 Oshogbo bomb blast still rage

About three years after the bomb blast at Osun State Secretariat, Osogbo, capital of the state, members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Action  Congress, AC, are still trading accusations over the incident. At the receiving end of a renewed persecution is Engineer Rauf Aregbesola, the AC governorship candidate in the state in the 2007 election. He was, on 13 August, re-invited by the Osun State Police Command, to add or delete from the earlier statement he made to James Effiong, a policeman, on 23 June 2007 when he was earlier accused of being brain behind the blast.

That time, the police investigated and exonerated Aregbesola and other AC members. However, the new harassment of the opposition politicians is based on a new affidavit that the alleged culprit in the saga, Richard Abayomi, swore to which claimed that Aregbesola gave him the assignment. The situation is aggravated by a new allegation by the police that a diary containing the names of AC big shots was discovered, three years after, at the scene of the explosion.

It was on the basis of this that more AC chieftains were arrested and summarily prosecuted in batches for conspiracy and felony. Arrested first were Sunday Olaoye, elder brother of Mrs. Titi Olaoye-Tomori, the AC Deputy Governorship candidate in 2007;  Magistrate Ayotunde Oyebiyi, 40, and Jimoh Olugbenga Akano, 47, a lawyer. Others were the Minority Leader in the state Assembly, Hon. Timothy Owoeye, 36, representing Ilesa East State Constituency; Hon. Folarin Fafowora, 41, representing Ilesa West State Constituency; AC Director of Research, Publicity and Strategy, Sunday Akere; Layi Oyeduntan, AC Chairman in Osun State; Moshood Adeoti, 55, AC secretary; Gboyega Famodun, 50; and the Director of Publicity, Aregbesola Campaign Organisation, Gbenga Fayemiwo, 47.

They were docked before Magistrate Olalekan Ijiyode who remanded them in prison custody. All of them spent between one week and a month behind bars before being released on bail. On Wednesday 10 August, Akano and Oyebiyi were discharged and acquitted, based on the Director of Public Prosecution, DPP’s advice.

However, the question on the lips of political observers and critics is, how did Abayomi get released from prison custody and was allegedly accommodated at the Government House, Oshogbo?

The whole trouble started at 11.45 am on 14 June 2007, when a bomb went off inside a grey Peugeot 505 parked in front of the Ministry of Water Resources, Secretariat, Abere, Osogbo, just 100 metres to the Osun State Governor’s Office complex. The explosion ripped apart an unidentified occupant and blinded the left eye of another, Richard Abayomi. However, the driver, Gboyega Olasogba and one Henry Taye absconded. Ever since, the two parties have not ceased trading accusations.

That day, Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola of Osun State openly alleged that the act was sponsored by his assumed arch enemy, Aregbesola. “This is the handiwork of the opposition,” he was quoted as saying.

However, Aregbesola warned Oyinlola, his aides and PDP not to implicate him and his party in the blast. Maintaining that he is a man of peace, he stressed: “All my life, I have never used violence to advance any political or electoral cause. I don’t need to plant a bomb as a method to prosecute my political interest.”

Dismissing Aregbesola’s argument, however, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Lasisi Olagunju argued that the suspect had made a voluntary statement on oath, giving details of the masterminds and how the operation was planned in Aregbesola’s house and executed at the government secretariat as they planned. “We must appreciate one thing here and that is the fact that whatever a prime suspect says in any case will hold water. It is now the duty of anyone linked with the case to come clean with scientifically proven explanations,” Olagunju maintained.

But two weeks after the incident, the police exonerated Aregbesola and his party as preliminary investigation did not link any AC member to the plot. This was made known in a police Interim Investigation Report, forwarded by the Osun State Police Command on 28 June 2007 to the office of the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, as well as the report of the Force Headquarters Crime Investigation Department, CID, Abuja.

The two police reports indicted Abayomi as a bomber and recommended his prosecution. He was promptly charged after his recuperation in the hospital. The presiding magistrate, Mr. Jide Falola, ordered the suspect to be remanded in Ilesha Prison. However, nine months after, Abayomi introduced a twist to the saga. Claiming that he could no longer suffer alone for a crime jointly committed with AC chieftains, he swore to an affidavit implicating Aregbesola and other AC stalwarts.

In the affidavit, he claimed that his four-member group was recruited by Aregbesola and the AC leadership and brought to Ojota in Lagos, where they were commissioned for the assignment. He stated that while in Lagos, they visited Aregbesola at his residence for an earlier scheduled meeting but he was not at home. Afterwards, he said, they were taken to a guest house where a parcel that would be used to bomb INEC and Oyinlola was given to them. He further affirmed that a diary that contained clues of all that transpired in Lagos was in the car as at the time of the bomb blast.

This new twist to the case helped him to secure bail from the court. But when he could not meet the bail conditions, he was remanded in prison custody. But his whereabouts are unknown as he now allegedly lives in the Osun State Government House. This claim was denied by Olagunju, who argued that Abayomi is in police custody, a statement which the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Solomon Olusegun, could not confirm. “You know I cannot comment on the case because I was not in Osun State when the bomb blast occurred. I cannot say anything about the suspect. As regards whether Abayomi is in my custody or not, I will find out for you but you have to call me again,” the police chief told TheNEWS. But when he was contacted again, he stated that those who could provide information on the whereabouts of Abayomi had travelled.

At the Osun State Prison Command, the Prison Public Relations Officer, Mr. Fadairo Oluwole, claimed that he and the state controller were new in the state. He stressed that they don’t know anything about the suspect and urged the magazine to visit Ilesa Prison “where you can get your fact and the information you need”.

However, attempts to confirm whether Abayomi is in Ilesa Prison custody were frustrated by the authorities. The controller in charge of the prison, Mr. Musa Y. directed the magazine back to the state prison headquarters. “You have to go back to the headquarters where you came from. They have all the information you need,” he said.

Kayode Odeyemi, the National PRO of the Prisons Service who was contacted on phone to assist in finding out the current place of abode of Abayomi, declared that such an assignment was beyond his specified job. “I am the national PRO. There is nothing I can do. You have to go back to Osogbo to see the state controller who will use his discretion to either oblige you the information or deny you,” he said.

Nevertheless,  Abayomi’s claim propelled the police to conduct another search after the earlier one conducted on the day of the bomb blast by the then state Commissioner of Police, Sulaiman Fakai and the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations, ACP Muhammed. During the earlier search, the police found a complimentary card which bore the contact address of Abayomi in Ondo town, Ondo State. Surprisingly, at the second search by the police, nine months after, led by the current O/C Legal in Osun State, DSP Adewale Ayuba, the police claimed to have found a diary containing the names of some AC members.  “But ever since, the diary has not been produced for the public to see,” an AC member complained in Oshogbo.

The AC alleged foul play by questioning how a diary that was not seen on the day of the incident, produced itself out of a shattered vehicle nine months later. One of the AC members stated: “As I am talking to you, nobody has seen the diary apart from DSP Ayuba and Governor Oyinlola. The diary in question beat the July/August/ September 2007 rains, the scorching hot weather of December, January and February did not affect it. They found it neat and the content neatly packed. The question is, why was the mystery diary not found when the bomb blast occurred? Where was it since June 2007 to March 2008? Why was the diary not affected by the blast if the blast could expose as little as a complimentary card? The diary has not been seen by any other person other than DSP Adewale Ayuba who later took over the investigation.”

On Thursday 13 August 2010, Aregbesola was re-invited by the Police Command. But he refused to make another statement, stating that he would stand by his earlier statement taken by Effiong.

The magazine learnt that while the magistrate’s offence was that he granted bail to Lukman who was arrested by the police for recording illegal thumb-printing of ballot papers by officials of INEC on 5 May 2007––long after the conclusion of the last general election to make up for the votes declared for Oyinlola––Akano had argued for Lukman’s bail and demanded for Certified True Copies, CTCs, of the record of proceedings at the trial of Abayomi. Akano was also alleged to be too vocal against Oyinlola.

While Akere’s ‘crime’ was rooted in his daily, consistent and strong press releases against Oyinlola, Fayemiwo’s piece of December 2008 titled, ‘Defecating on the highway, published by Osun Defender, led to his incrimination in the saga. In the piece, Fayemiwo alleged that Oyinlola failed woefully in the West African Schools Certificate examination of 1968 written in Odo-Otin Grammar School, Okuku, adding that Oyinlola had C6 in English Language, C5 in Literature in English, with ordinary passes and F9 in others. Oyinlola, sources said, felt humiliated.

While Famodun was targeted for his refusal to rejoin the PDP after all entreaties, Timothy and Fafowora, who represent Aregbesola’s constituency, were said to have been implicated because of their affinity to Aregbesola. Oyeduntan, a former Commissioner for Water Resources and Health in the administration of Bisi Akande, was seen as a traitor. Though he had shared several golf playing sessions with Oyinlola, he was pivotal to the successful launching of Oranmiyan, Aregbesola’s social-cultural and political campaign outfit. Despite all entreaties by Oyinlola, Oyeduntan rebuffed the pressure on him to join PDP.

AC is therefore maintaining that the prosecution of these members for alleged conspiracy in the bomb blast is political, and urged the appropriate authorities to wade into the matter, give them justice and bring the culprits to book.

—Gbenro Adesina/Ibadan

Tags:  Engineer Rauf Aregbesola, James Effiong, Magistrate Ayotunde Oyebiyi, Oshogbo bomb blast, Peoples Democratic Party