Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka has raised concerns over the safety of the former minister of power and steel, Olu Agunloye in Kuje prison
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arraigned Agunloye before Justice Donatus Okorowo. He pleaded not guilty to the charges read against him.
The Federal High Court subsequently remanded former Minister of Power and Steel, Mr. Olu Agunloye at the Kuje Correctional Centre, pending when the bail would be granted over allegations of fraud.
Last December, the EFCC declared Agunloye wanted on an alleged case of forgery and corruption. In a communique shared by the commission on X and its website, the former minister’s image was displayed with a message urging the public to provide information that could lead to his arrest.
Shortly after the EFCC’s alert, Agunloye was apprehended and detained.
Agunloye, who served as minister in President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration (1999-2003), was being quizzed during his tenure in connection with Mambilla project.
Obasanjo had accused him of fraudulently awarding the contract for the project without the Federal Executive Council approval. But Agunloye denied the accusations and claimed the former president was distorting facts.
Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka questioned the EFCC’s action.
In his statement, Soyinka argued that the practice of citizen detention at the whim of either religious blackmail or secular arrogation demands curtailment at source, most especially when exercised in defiance of the law, and the pronouncements of its agencies.
“The immediate provocation for these reflections is the ongoing predicament of a former Minister of Power, Dr. Olu Agunloye, currently detained by the EFCC, in total contempt of sense and justice, or indeed, basic humane considerations.
” We shall not go into the merit or demerits of the charges raised against him over a 16-year-old project that bears the name Mambilla. –that is the business of the law courts”.
“Our concern at this moment is however only partially on the basis of individual fundamental human rights.
“Most fortuitously, the detention of any former public servant under circumstances such as Agunloye also provokes the question: how is public interest – such as the pursuit of justice – served by such an arbitrary exercise of power.
A statement by his spokesperson, Jahman Anikulapo, Soyinka recalled that the late Bola Ige was murdered in his bedroom, noting that the killers were yet to be identified.
He said Agunloye, a pivotal witness in Ige’s case, could be killed in detention.
“Dr. Olu Agunloye, we learn, was finally charged to court today, and the presiding judge in his or her wisdom, adjourned the case and proceeded to remand the accused.
“I wish to alert the nation, and the government that there exists a justifiable, high-level concern for Agunloye’s safety.
“I have made it clear 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 Agunloye the same fate as Bola Ige.
“Let it be understood that if anything happens to this pivotal witness while in custody, the inference will be heard loud, clear, and unambiguous”, Soyinka warned
