December 19, (THEWILL) – Controversy has contiued to trail claims made by the Interim National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Bisi Akande, in his autobiography titled, ‘My Participations,’ which was launched in Lagos about a week ago. This is coming as the countdown to the 2023 general election begins in earnest, with interested parties and individuals unveiling their game-plan as they test the political waters in preparation for the big battle ahead.
However, with the trending and disapproving outbursts generated by Akande’s book, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Olabode George, who is in no way directly mentioned in the 557-page book, but largely associated with many of the people discussed in it, weighed in with caution last week.
“Is this the legacy he (Akande) wants to leave behind, destroying Yoruba leaders just because he wants to please Tinubu? Let him remember that there is a younger generation of Nigerians that is watching. This is the time for sobering thoughts,” George said, while responding to a question by a journalist during a briefing held on Thursday at his Lagos Island residence, which was attended by THEWILL.
George, who expressed disgust over what he described as the “many controversies and lies,” contained in the autobiographical work, urged Akande, who was governor of Osun State between 1999 and 2003, to show remorse and apologise to Nigerians.
Although George’s view may be questionable and his neutrality unknown since Akande expressed his freedom of expression to write and publish his life story and the “story of contemporary Nigeria and its leadership,” according to Mr Dare Babarinbsa, Chairman of Gaskia Media Limited, publisher of the controversial book, there is no doubt that the insinuations, allusions and allegations made by Akande in his book against many political actors have formed the basis of the heated reactions so far, with the possibility of heightening social tension amid the climate of uncertainty, insecurity, low morale and fear in the country.
At the last count, many powerful and influential men, who have reacted to references to them in the book include former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; the leader of Afenifere, the Pan- Yoruba socio-political group, Chief Ayo Adebanjo; a former governor of Osun State and Akande’s successor, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola. These are aside the viewpoints expressed by newspaper columnists and writers almost on a daily basis since the public presentation of the book.
Others still biding their time include a former Foreign Affairs Minister, Chief Tom Ikimi and first National Chairman of the ruling APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun. Former Secretary to Government of the Federation and Presidential candidate in the 1999 general election, Chief Olu Falae, was yet to make good his promise to react as at press time.
Another APC chieftain, Chief Odigie-Oyegun and Ikimi asked to be given time to respond to Akande.
Reactions From Oyegun, Atiku, Ikimi
From the reactions so far, it is safe to say that while some feel their character has been called into question, others think their political decisions at some point in time have either been judged illogical or considered unspeakable.
When THEWILL sought to know Odigie-Oyegun’s reaction to the raging controversies, his reply was terse.
“I have to read the book myself so that I do not speak out of context,” he told this reporter. The pioneer National Chairman of the APC refused to disclose when that would be, except to give the assurance that he would respond at the appropriate time.
On Odigie-Oyegun, Akande wrote that despite the support Tinubu gave him to become the National Chairman of the party in July 2013, Odigie-Oyegun joined unnamed intriguers in the party when it came to choosing its Vice Presidential candidate for the 2015 general election.
According to Akande, Odigie-Oyegun started asking for names from the geo-political zones where Buhari would pick his vice-presidential candidate.
“He (Odigie-Oyegun) said it was from this list that Buhari would choose a running mate. I objected. I turned to Buhari and asked him, ‘General, where are you choosing your running mate from.’ He answered, ‘The South-West.’ ‘Oh,! I didn’t know,’ Odigie-Oyegun said. He apologized,” he said.
Akande also said in the book, “I did not know why Odigie-Oyegun made that proposition and at whose behest. As the chairman of the party, maybe, some people pushed him to do that.
“Then, I called Buhari aside. ‘Is our arrangement still standing?’ I referred him to our discussion in April. He said yes!”
That April discussion was between Akande and Buhari. The subject was the vice presidential slot. The discussion took place before the APC presidential convention held in Lagos, ahead of the 2015 polls.
Akande explained, “In April 2014, I was in Abuja when Buhari called me and asked me to persuade Bola to run with him. Governor Masari was the one who came to call me. When I followed him into Buhari’s private lobby, Bola Tinubu was already seated there.
“So when Buhari tabled the matter, I cautioned them that this must not get out beyond the four of us. How could he be talking of a running mate when he had not secured the ticket, I mused.
“I thought such information, if leaked to the general public, might affect the conduct of the party’s congress at the presidential primaries, if not its choice of candidate. I thanked Buhari for thinking so highly of our friend.
“Bola later told me that Buhari’s emissaries had been coming to him, but he tried to dodge the gesture and not to show interest. We agreed that we would reopen the matter after Buhari had secured the ticket,” he said.
On Atiku
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who was also the presidential candidate of the opposition PDP in the 2015 general election, refused to speak when contacted.
A dependable source from the North, who witnessed what transpired during the 2007 politicking for the VP ticket for the Action Congress of Nigeria, told THEWILL on condition of anonymity that the issue assumed an embarrassing dimension when the late Iya Loja of Lagos, Alhaja Abibatu Mogaji and Bola Tinubu’s mother, got involved.
“You will not believe it. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu reported Atiku to his mother, Alhaja Mogaji. Atiku was taken aback and embarrassed by this turn of event because we had argued that it would be difficult to sell a Muslim-Muslim ticket during the election. Chief MKO Abiola was able to pull it through in 1993 and he won the now popular June 12 election because he was a known philanthropist among Muslims and Christians, especially for his donations to their religious causes, for a long time. But in 2007, the religious sensibilities in the country were such that we needed to balance things. We never thought Tinubu would take things to the level of reporting Atiku to his mother,” the source said.
But, according to Akande, Atiku betrayed Tinubu in 2007 by breaching the agreement reached with the Alliance for Democracy leadership to choose the former Lagos state governor as his vice-presidential candidate.
As narrated by Akande, Atiku resisted pressure from party big wigs, including former Governor Olusegun Osoba of Ogun State, Governor Niyi Adebayo of Ekiti State and Governor Lam Adesina of Oyo State to concede the VP ticket to Tinubu. Instead, he picked Senator Ben Obi.
Akande said, “It was the second time Tinubu was tantalisingly close to the VP slot. In 2007, we formed a party, the Action Congress (AC) with Abubakar Atiku. We agreed that Atiku should be our presidential candidate and we had the understanding that he would run with Bola Tinubu.
“Segun Osoba, Niyi Adebayo and Lam Adesina had earlier met Atiku and we proposed to him our choice of Tinubu. He promised to come back to us. He gave us a date. On that date, we all assembled. Atiku came with Audu Ogbe, Tom Ikimi and Usman Bugaje.
“We proposed that Tinubu should be the running mate, although he was not at the meeting. Atiku would not give us an immediate answer. He said he wanted to have more consultations.
“I was the chairman of the AC at the time. One day, after we had nominated Atiku as our presidential candidate, one young man came and gave me a form from the Independent National Electoral Commission. I told him I could not sign a blank form and that I, as the chairman, must know the name that would be filled in it.
“The young man, Bashir Yusuf Ibrahim, must have been the organising right-hand man of Atiku. He was an active person from Kano. The following morning, he came again with Lawan Kaita.
“Kaita begged me and said it was Ben Obi whom Atiku had chosen as his running mate behind our back. So, I signed the form because I believed, as the candidate, Atiku had the right to choose his running mate. If I refused to sign, that would create a crisis.
“Obasanjo was stepping down from the presidency. Therefore, the Yoruba, even the few that benefited from his arrogant rule, would no longer be obliged to vote for the PDP.”
Akande claimed Ikimi and Ogbe were part of the ‘Atiku caucus’ that campaigned against Tinubu on the grounds that the Atiku-Tinubu ticket would mean a Muslim –Muslim ticket, which might be difficult to sell to the already polarised electorate.
“Atiku never said anything. We left the meeting. It was after we were deadlocked that they brought me the blank form. So, Atiku ran with Obi and failed. Only Lagos State from South-West voted for Atiku,” Akande added.
According to the former chairman of APC, the pressure to field Tinubu was partly due to his generosity, saying that anytime they needed money Atiku would say to Tinubu, ‘Bola, please help us.’
“Bola was the only one spending the money among us. The rest of us were poor. Tinubu also invested his energy and resources in the birthing of the AC and we felt he deserved a spot on the ticket,” he said.
In another instance he accused Ikimi of trying to hijack the new party, APC.
When asked for his response, Ikimi told THEWILL that he was very busy and would grant an interview on the matter much later or, in the alternative, make out time to respond to the claims made against him by Akande.
Adebanjo And Oyinlola Reply Akande
To set the records straight, Adebanjo, leader of Afenifere, addressed a press conference to explain how he built his Lekki home located at Ayo Adebanjo Close, Off Adebayo Doherty Street, Lekki Phase 1, Lagos State. The briefing was held in his home.
Speaking to further debunk Akande’s claim that he (Adebanjo) ‘pestered Tinubu’ to build the Lekki house for him, Adebanjo gave a graphic detail of how he built the home, the names of the engineers and consultants, as well as the designers of the home, how he sold the landed property bequeathed to him by his late mother, Salamotu Anomo-Adebanjo, as well as the land given to him by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and the loan he obtained from Guaranty Trust Bank.
He said, “About a week ago, on Thursday, December 7 to be exact, at the presentation of the book titled, ‘My Participation’, by Chief Bisi Akande, it was said that Chief Akande stated in the book that I put pressure on Bola Tinubu to build a house for me.
“But since Bola Tinubu himself was present at the presentation, I expect him within a few days to refute such a malicious falsehood about me emanating from his Man Friday.
“I hold this view because Bola Tinubu, just some three years ago, on the occasion of the presentation of my autobiography titled, ‘Saying It As It Is’, said that for my incorruptibility and strength of character, he, Bola Tinubu, would not have been Governor of Lagos State in 1999. What then could he be demanding from me after his two-term governorship to make me pressurise him to build a house for me when I did not get a kobo from him before he became governor?
“I, therefore, state categorically that my house at Lekki was built with my resources through the sale of three developed properties, loan from GTBank and the sale of undeveloped landed property given (to) me by my late leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, of blessed memory.”
He stated that the story of his home started with, “A four-bedroom duplex, with a two-bedroom flat enclosed with two undeveloped plots at Plot 4, Block 14 Nuru Oniwo Street, Aguda, Surulere, Lagos State” which he later sold to “St Baths Anglican Church, Aguda, Surulere “ and another .
“A two-storey building at Odedola Street, Surulere, Lagos State, which I bought through an estate agent by the name Mr. Shiwoniku, who has relocated to the UK; he has a brother who is a legal practitioner in Abuja. The house was sold to a Ghanaian by the name Mr Akappo.”
Adebanjo claimed that another building, whose plot he inherited from his mother, was also later sold to persons with known names and addresses. “Then I took a loan from GTBank to complete the house in Lekki where I am living now. The Lekki property, the house in my village, Isanya Ogbo, and three bedroom flat in a townhouse at Omorinre Street in Lekki are the properties I have in the whole world,” he said.
Adebanjo concluded by declaring his readiness to invite and authorise the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) “to verify the above facts.”
For equal measure, he challenged Tinubu and Akande to make similar disclosures about their houses and sources and wealth and subject the same to scrutiny by the anti-graft agency.
For Prince Oyinlola, who disclosed that many of the allegations made against him by Akande were detailed in his own forthcoming autobiography, there is a need to urgently address certain issues surrounding the ‘Bola Ige House contract,’ (Government House); Akande’s full advance payment of N800 million on new Government House and the result of the 2007 governorship election, which Akande alleged was rigged in Oyinlola’s favour.
On the Government House contract, Oyinlola said, “Chief Akande said I wrongly accused him of corruption in the construction of the Governor’s Office (Bola Ige House). I did not level any false charges against him. I came into office in May 2003 and discovered that the Governor’s Office complex, which he commissioned for use after he lost the election, was not completed.
“The state government asked the contractor to come back to the site and complete the work, more so when evidence in government accounts showed that he had been paid. But the project consultant shocked everyone with his claim that part of the payment was taken back to finance the 2003 re-election bid of Chief Akande. The consultant said the contractor could not go back to work unless he was paid his full dues.
“One of Akande’s appointees confessed to collecting money from this contractor for his re-election. I consulted Chief Akande on this. He denied having any deal with the contractor and the consultant.
“Some people were subsequently taken to court on a seven-count criminal charge. Stakeholders in the state and Alhaji Arisekola Alao later intervened. I have the details of who collected how much in my forthcoming book.”
Oyinlola continued, “I found it strange that Chief Akande, who boasted that he was prudent and honest as governor, awarded the construction of a Government House in his last days in office, after he lost the election and paid the contractors the entire contract sum of N800million in advance.
”Chief Akande confirmed this strange payment on page 393 of his book. This is a man, who said there was no money to pay workers and pensioners, but he had enough to pay a contractor in advance for a Government House after losing his re-election.
“In any case, the state had already embarked upon the construction of a Government House. It was started by the military government, but Akande refused to complete it I completed the project and added chalets plus a presidential lodge. Everything was completed and commissioned within my first year in office. The state has continued to use the structures till date. Akande, in his book, condemned my decision to opt for that project instead of his own idea. Further details on this are in my forthcoming book.”
Oyinlola denied that the 2003 governorship election in Osun State was rigged in his favour, saying, “Chief Akande has repeatedly told this lie. The truth is known to everybody in the state that Akande lost the state shortly after he took over in 1999 and started fighting everyone.
“He sacked thousands of workers and did not pay their entitlements. In some instances, the retrenched persons included a husband, wife and children. He owed those who were not sacked months of unpaid salaries, which I inherited and paid. He deducted 20 percent of workers salaries to fund his projects. He fought Obas, chiefs and religious groups and leaders. He sacked the press from government activities, blocked the only access road to NTA Osogbo and locked the gate of the Government House against even press correspondents in the state. He had no word of succour for his victims. These were the ingredients that cooked his defeat in 2003.”
On Akande’s diatribe against former President Olusegun Obasanjo for ‘misadvising’ Oyinlola, the former Osun governor said, “Ironically, Chief Akande was President Obasanjo’s favorite and the former President always said this to those of us in his party. What came to my mind when I read about Chief Akande’s attack on Obasanjo was the proverb, “Eni a fe l’a mo, a o mo eni to fe ni (We only know those we love, we do not know those who love us).”
There is no doubt that with the promise of more reactions to follow, Akande and his book, ‘My Participation’ still have more appointments to keep with his foes.
With additional report from AYO ESAN
Amos Esele is the Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
