Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has warned that embattled former Minister Dr. Olu Agunloye may suffer the same fate of death as Late Chief Bola Ige.
Dr. Olu Agunloye has been remanded in Kuje Prison by the court over the Mambilla scam case. Justice Onwuegbuzie ruled that the defendant be remanded in Kuje Correctional Centre and set Thursday, January 11, 2024 for hearing on the bail application.
In a statement released on Wednesday titled ‘A pivotal witness and a custodial danger,’ it reads, “Dr. Olu Agunloye, we learn, was finally charged to court today. The case was adjourned, and the presiding judge, in his or her wisdom, proceeded to remand the accused in Kuje Prison, pending resumption of his case.
“I wish to alert the nation and the government that there exists a justifiable, high-level concern for his safety,” Soyinka stated.
The Nobel Laureate further stated, “His predecessor in office, the late Chief Bola Ige, was murdered in his bedroom by a 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.
“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,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arraigned the former Minister of Power and Steel Development on seven count charges bordering on fraudulent award of contract and official corruption.
One of the count reads: “That you, Olu Agunloye, whilst being the Minister of Power and Steel on or about the 22nd of May, 2003 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court awarded a contract, titled “Construction of 3,960mw Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Station on a Build, Operate and Transfer Basis” to Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited without any budgetary provision, approval and cash backing and you thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 22(4) of the Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Act, 2000.”
Another count reads: “That you, Olu Agunloye, on or about the 10th of August, 2019 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, corruptly received the sum of Three Million Six Hundred Thousand Naira (N3,600,000.00) through your Guaranty Trust Bank account no.0022530926 from Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited (SPTCL) and Leno Adesanya for having conveyed the approval of the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the construction of the 3,960 megawatts Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Station in favour of SPTCL which you did whilst serving as the Minister of Power and Steel without the approval of the Federal Executive Council contrary to and punishable under Section 8(1)(a) and (b) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000.”
He pleaded “not guilty” to all the charges when they were read to them.
