Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka has said he is concerned about the safety of the former minister of power and steel Olu Agunloye.
The former minister was on Wednesday remanded in the Kuje Correctional Centre by Justice Donatus Okorowu of a Federal High Court in Abuja.
Agunloye was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over allegations of fraud in the Mambilla Power Project.
Reacting to Agunloye’s remand in the Kuje facility, Soyinka said: “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. 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.
Court remands former minister Olu Agunloye in Kuje prison
EFCC declared Olu Agunloye wanted when he wasn’t even on the run – Soyinka
“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.”
The renowned playwright, who earlier condemned the EFCC for declaring Agunloye wanted even when the latter was not in hiding, concluded: “Let it be understood that if anything happens to this pivotal witness while in custody, the inference will be heard loud, clear, and unambiguous.”
