Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has expressed joy over the loss of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the recently concluded gubernatorial election in Osun State.
According to Soyinka, the loss of Governor Gboyega Oyetola was a form of punishment for the sacrilege against former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Chief Bola Ige who was murdered under mysterious circumstances.
VANTAGE NEWS recalls that Ige, who is from Osun State, was murdered on December 23, 2001, during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
One of the prime suspects in the murder is a current chieftain of the APC and then Deputy Governor of Osun State, Senator Iyiola Omisore.
Omisore was arrested in 2002 and detained over Ige’s murder but he pleaded not guilty.
Soyinka, in an interview with Channels TV, lamented without mentioning names that it was shocking for the APC to make someone who was implicated in Ige’s murder one of its chieftains.
The Noble Laureate added that the loss of the Osun governorship polls was part of the APC punishment for the Ige murder, arguing that the party had become a place where those with criminal allegations run to and have their ‘sins forgiven.’
He said, “When the results began to come in, I had just returned (from overseas). It was like a welcome present because I saw that party (APC) being punished for that act of sacrilege.”
“The two parties (APC and PDP) have become very confusing to start with. Members have moved across so much. There has been so much inter-marriage and the bloodline has diluted in many aspects, being polluted in many aspects.
“It even got to a stage where a prominent member of the APC actually articulated the sentiment of ‘Oh, come and join us and your sins will be forgiven’.
“It didn’t surprise me too much that somebody who has been so heavily implicated in the death of a prominent member of that party, Bola Ige, he is a founding member, that his memories should be so thrashed by consulting one of the prominent figures who featured in the events – forget whether he was innocent of the actual crime or not – was heavily implicated in the humiliation of that individual, that founding member of that party who was also the minister of justice of this nation.
“To actually catapult one of those crime suspects and proven contributors, and to find that that person has been given a position in that party (APC), in governance, and after the President (Muhammadu Buhari) had actually inaugurated a re-examination of that episode amongst other crimes, that is quite a bit of shock. And I mentioned at a time, that is a bit of sacrilege. And remember, this Osun is Bola Ige’s state.”
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