By Abiodun komolafe
It is 18 years since Bola Ige, Afenifere chieftain and former governor of the old Oyo State, departed this wide, wild world of war, courtesy of some yet-to-be identified assassins.
Ige was the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation at the time of his death on December 23, 2001.
Close to two decades after the gory incident, Solemilia Court, No 8, Akinlabi Sanda Close, Bodija in Ibadan, Oyo State, where the foremost nationalist breathed his last on that fateful Sunday evening, still wears a mournful look, save for some few-and-far-between movements in and out of the compound.
Credible sources revealed that the room, where the former presidential aspirant was killed, remains under lock and key, in the family’s hope that, one day, destiny will change its mind and the uncleansed sacrilege of its patriarch’s murder will be resolved in the interest of justice.
Cicero captured the mood of our predicament when he wrote: “the hope of escaping with impunity is the greatest incentive to vice.”Jean-Jacques Rousseau also dreaded its evil in the human society when he posited that “as soon as it is possible to disobey with impunity, disobedience is legitimate …” Yes, we know that Bola Ige is dead and has since been buried!However, blame the portentous naughtiness, hypocritical propensity and a bourgeoning legitimacy of impunity for providing the ingredients for our inability to find his killers and apply sanctions.
And there is no other way to cure impunity than a draconian attack; for, if we don’t get that aspect of justice right, we will only be shooting in the dark; and at imaginary targets!
Dele Giwa (1986)! Alfred Rewane (1995)! Bagauda Kaltho (1996)! Kudirat Abiola (1996)! MKO Abiola (1998)!Barnabas Igwe and Abigail, his wife (2002)! Marshall Harry (2003)! Aminosari Dikibo (2004)! Hassan Olajoku (2005)! Ayodeji Daramola (2006)! Funsho Williams (2006)! Dipo Dina (2010)! Olaitan Oyerinde (2012)! Funke Olakunri (2019)! As a game or a trade, Nigeria is in dangerous times and all eyes can see it! More to the shock of Nigerians, dear country has couched euphemistic names for reckless killings in the land; and it is as if the gods are angry! In Katsina, Governor Aminu Masari is now at the forefront of negotiations with bandits for “peace to return to” President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state.
Curiously, other states are fast catching the bug! Elsewhere in Kaduna State, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has, in a spate of two years, paid more than “N300m as ransom to free over-500” of its members from the kidnappers’ den.
And, in what could be described as half cup of much bigger problems in this poignant portrait of vanity and falseness, the usual band of four hundred prophets continue to hang around Ahab and Jehoshaphat, even, as the kings march on Syria.
For a fact, societal cohesion comes as a result of the interconnectedness of little-yet-important ties. However, whenever those ties are ruptured, the consequences are always grave.
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That security is a global problem is a fair and general argument! But, where a dog kills a lion, the society needs to beware! Amidst what looks like faint promises of recovery from those elected and paid to protect us, Leah Sharibu has added to the number of Nigerians wasting away in Boko Haram’s custody even as the police hierarchy now allegedly pays ransom to kidnappers in exchange for freedom for its seized officers, Yet, it does not appear as if the people are ready to do something concrete about this tragic manifestation of the statelessness of the Nigerian state. Instead, everybody keeps going about his or her daily activities as if nothing is amiss!
Very recently, Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka wrote a letter to the National Assembly on the controversial Hate Speech Bill before the Hallowed Chamber. In the letter, Soyinka asked, rhetorically, if it’s “now cool to kill”
