Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has described the continued detention of Former Minister of Power and Steel, Dr. Olu Agunloye as “sinister and alarming”, calling for an independent inquiry into the Mambila power scandal, for which Agunloye is being tried.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Wednesday, arraigned Agunloye at the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, High Court, Abuja on seven count charges bordering on fraudulent award of contract and official corruption.
Although he pleaded not guilty, Justice J.O Onwuegbuzie ruled that the former minister be remanded in Kuje Correctional Centre
READ: $6billion Fraud: EFCC Arraigns Former Minister
In a statement released later on Wednesday, Prof Soyinka expressed worries about the Safety of Dr Agunloye while in custody, while recollecting circumstances leading to the murder of former minister of power and steel, Chief Bola Ige.
In the statement he titled ‘A pivotal witness and a custodial danger”, Soyinka said; “I wish to alert the nation and the government that there exists a justifiable, high-level concern for his safety.
“His predecessor in office, the late Chief Bola Ige, was murdered in his bedroom by professional assassin even while his police protection detail took time off, all at the same time, to a nearby eatery.
“Till today, those mystery killers have yet to be identified, arrested, and tried.
Soyinka insisted that the Mambila Scandal is directly related to the killing of Ige.
He said: “I have made it clear, even as recently as a few weeks ago, that Bola Ige’s murder was not unconnected with the Mambilla scam.
“Olu Agunloye worked closely with me, both within and outside routine police motions, to unmask Ige’s killers.
“It would therefore amount to unpardonable complacency to propose that there are no forces sufficiently desperate to accord him the same fate as Bola Ige. That goal is made easier by the abrupt decision to remand him in prison.
“I have called for an independent, non-partisan commission to probe at length and in-depth, in public sittings, this scandal of expanding dimensions that has crippled the energy needs of a nation of two hundred million citizens over the past two decades. The latest development is sinister and alarming.
“Let it be understood that if anything happens to this pivotal witness while in custody, the inference will be heard loud, clear, and unambiguous,” the Nobel Laureate said
