Nobel Laurette Prof. Wole Soyinka has faulted the continued incarceration of a former Minister of Power and Steel, Mr Olu Agunloye, in Kuje Correctional Centre.
Mr Agunloye was brought before the court on Wednesday where he pleaded not guilty to corruption charges read against him.
The presiding judge at the Federal High Court subsequently ordered that he be remanded in Kuje Correctional centre, pending when the bail would be granted.
Reacting, Soyinka expressed concern over the safety of the former Minister, suggesting that there are forces who may be working to accord him the same fate as the late former Minister of Justice, Bola Ige, who was assassinated in 2001.
“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 to Kuje prison, pending the resumption of his case.
“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 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.
The Nobel Laurette called for “an independent, non-partisan commission to probe at length and in-depth, in public settings, this scandal of expanding dimensions that have crippled the energy needs of a nation of two hundred million citizens over the past two decades. The latest development is sinister and alarming.
The EFCC in December 2023 declared Agunloye wanted on an alleged case of forgery and corruption. The former minister’s image was displayed with a message urging the public to provide information that could lead to his arrest.
Agunloye who served under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government (1999-2003), was being quizzed in connection with the Mambilla project.
