Bola Ige’s murder is at the Heart of Injustice in Nigeria -By Dr. Olu Agunloye

Being a presentation at the

Annual Memorial Symposium on

Two Decades of Injustice: implications on Nigerian democracy

Held at Banquet Hall, Lagos Airport Hotel, Ikeja

at 11 am, Tuesday, 21 December 2021 in commemoration of the

20^th Bola Ige Memorial Anniversary

Protocols and Greetings

In addition to standing on existing protocols, please permit me to greet all the Awon Omo Ige here today and anywhere on the planet earth. Some of them are current and past Governors, Ministers, Ambassador, Legislators etc. including co-Guest Speaker, Chief Adeniyi Akintola, SAN who is here with us. Permit me also to start by acknowledging the tenacity and resilience of Comrade Awa Bamiji, the President, Bola Ige Centre for Justice; President-General, Grand Council of Yoruba of Youths; Promoter of Annual Memorial Committee and Chairman, Organising for today’s Symposium. Comrade Awa Bamiji and his team have continuously kept Uncle Bola’s name in the front burner since the sage was assassinated. I also want to appreciate another set of Awon Omo Ige in the Bola Ige Movement, including same Chief Akintola SAN led by me which kept the Bola Ige name alive for ten years with events at celebrating his Life and Legacies at Premier Hotel or University of Ibadan for the first ten years until the then serving South West Governors who were Omo Ige took over in 2011.

Part I: The celebration continues

I have chosen to divide my contributions at today at this Symposium into two parts, both of which to celebrate a man who insisted that he be called Uncle Bola but who we knew and affectionately called multiple inangijes like Cicero, Iroko, Arole, Orator, Igede o, Kaduna Boy, an achiever who created 400 secondary schools during his four-year term as Oyo State Governor in fulfilment of his campaign promises, a man who touched the lives of millions of people positively. I need to say all these to remind us that we are here today to celebrate the life and legacies of an erudite scholar, a senior advocate of law. An astute politician, a competent, credible and compassionate man and a loving family man. A man who loved the common man with passion.

Uncle Bola’s greatest legacy was that he believed he had a duty to mentoring the next generations. This was a man who as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation had as main the issue of public justice. Notably, he embarked on the programme for the reform of the Laws of the Federation, which led to the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1999 (LFN1999) published in digital form and could be instantly available to the public and practitioners at virtually no costs; he mentored and got external funds for the reform of the 1999 Constitution and led the “resource control” struggle for the offshore oil of the coastal oil producing states to justice from the Federal Government.

Indeed, he was a man who fought for peace and justice as a student activist, lawyer, Commissioner, Governor, Minister of the Federal Republic and Honourable Attorney General of the Federation.

As we celebrate the man who loved us with passionate commitment, let us get some basic aspects clear. First is that Bola Ige did not kill himself. He met his killer face to face and he dealt him a fatal single shot aimed at his heart. Therefore, someone or some people assassinated him. God caught them in the act and God knows them but majority of us are waiting for justice while some of them are perhaps believing that they have got away. 

Second, the man who fired the shot did not act alone. He was part of a thoroughly well planned Knitted Conspiracy Network which comprised of those who cleared the way, those who subdued the household including a Judge of the Appeal Court of Justice, those who provide covers and those who pervert the laws to prevent justice.

Third, the killing of Uncle Bola was brutal, senseless and barbaric, hurting and hurtful. But it should not be misconstrued as the injustice. It is only a sign, a signature, a symbol and a symptom of bad governance, corruption and failure in the polity.

Fourthly, the Irony of it all is that a Minister of Justice, who was at the same time, husband of a serving Judge of the Court of Appeal of Nigeria was served with raw injustice in his house and in the presence of his household including his wife, children and grandchildren and for twenty years justice has not been done.

Part II: The fingers of the other hand

The above shows why we must seek to identify injustice anywhere and fight it. Injustice is discrimination, abuse and mistreatment racial treatment, poverty, environmental degradation; it is something that is not fair or just; for instance, when an innocent person is dismissed from employment for an offence he did not commit; when the welfare and well-being of people are constrained  on the basis of gender, sexuality, religion, political affiliations, age, race, belief, disability, location, social class, socioeconomic circumstances or when inequality is borne out of unjust rules, conditions or environment.

Injustice is denial of access to wealth, education, employments and resources as well as social, economic and political relationships amongst the people making a few becoming greatly privileged with access to wealth, resources and power while the less privileged become more greatly underdeveloped. Under this imbalance, the few privileged people compulsively take to corruption to accumulate more wealth, resources and power in unjust manner to maintain the unjust socioeconomic and political systems, and unfortunately, the poorer and less privileged ones also imbibe tendencies to leverage on corruption as a means of acquiring wealth, resources and power to level up. 

In a nutshell, injustice creates inequality and imbalance which favour a few people who then employ corruption as a tool to maintain the imbalance while the exploited people also look forward to the same corruption tool to leverage a leveller and take them out of poverty enclave and thus creating an all-pervasive corruption environment.

If Uncle Bola were alive, he would send another stern warning that injustice, corruption, insecurity, disorder and anarchy are now the five fingers of the other leprous hand. This is because in the twenty years after Uncle Bola’s assassination, unending injustice has become great threats to human security which virtually derailed economic security, food security, personal security, community security, and political security and created unprecedented corruption, social and economic disorder and emergent anarchy. In the period, Nigeria has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of government no longer function properly. The 2021 report on Fragile States Index ranked Nigeria as the 12th most fragile state in the world characterized by weak state capacity or weak state legitimacy leaving citizens vulnerable to Boko Haram, banditry, criminals kidnapping for money and a range of unwarranted dangers capable of undermining or destroying democracy.

Insecurity has become the face of multiple crisis associated with bad governance in Nigeria. There has been unabating reign of terror and actions of insurrectionists, agitators and outright criminalities which have crippled economic activities, significantly battered peace and the national social architecture. Socio-economic crisis has become pervasive and caused significant damages to the national fabric while the country steadily spirals into full blown chaos making the slide to anarchy look virtually uncontrollable.

This is why Nigerians must listen to the wake-up call of His Royal Majesty, the much-revered Sultan of Sokoto that “Nigeria is in trouble” because of “the citizen’s misdeeds, corruption and political recklessness.” leading to “banditry, insurgency and political rascality causing loss of lives in the country.” There is therefore an urgent need to stop thebreeding multiplicity of effects injustice like banditry, kidnapping, cannibalism, rapping, general social and economic disorders leading to more agitations, with more youths taking to crimes and rituals and significant numbers of them committing suicide. This is beyond the Bola Ige murder which was only a side kick of the system of injustice being perpetuated in Nigeria and for another twenty years after the Ige Assassination, this is snowballing into full fletched anarchy.

Resolving the Bola Ige murder is resolving the Nigeria, disentangling Nigeria and part of the process of leading Nigeria from the uncharted parts of the Amazon. It is not about Uncle Bola as he would not be revived from the dead until the ojo ajinde, the resurrection day but about the next generation for which Uncle Bola devoted his entire life, career, resources and integrity. It is about redemption of Nigeria.

This is why the Mr. President Muhammadu Buhari and his government should stop the slide to anarchy now; and avoid further actions that could bring the country to its knees through breakdown of law and order, and should boldly brace up for the insecurity challenges to stop the slide into total chaos.  

Finally, Nigerians should heed the wake-up call of the Sultan of Sokoto and embrace principles of social justice for access to resources, equity, participation, diversity and human rights to engender peace, progress and prosperity for Nigeria because it is time to build a new model of Nigeria where peace and justice shall reign.

Dr. Olu Agunloye