Ige’s murder: Soyinka berates Buhari over Omisore’s emergence as APC scribe

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, yesterday, said that the recent emergence of Iyiola Ajani Omisore, one of the prime suspects in the murder of a former Attorney General of the Federation, and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige, as the national secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has already “hamstrung and disrobed” the probe ordered by the President Muhammadu Buhari “of credibility.” 
  
After Ige was killed in his home in Ibadan, Oyo State on December 23, 2001, Omisore, a former deputy governor of Osun State and 10 others, who were charged for the murder were later discharged and acquitted. 
  
The playwright, last December, urged Buhari to work assiduously towards unraveling Ige’s killers so as to reinstate what he described as “the broken lines of justice.” 
  
But in a statement entitled, “Perhaps closed files should remain just that–­closed?” Soyinka expressed worries at the recent turnout of events.

The essayist continued: “Not for a moment does one suggest that mere accusation, even trial, presumes guilt. More than a mere verdict is involved in any trial, however. The process of arriving at that ultimate destination – justice – is integral to the very concept of democracy and equality under the law. That process is one of the structures of civic education. 
  
“Unresolved till today were quite a number of untidy, even suspect aspects of the investigation, prosecution and trials, aspects which revealed improper cell co-habitation by suspects under custody. That this led necessarily to recantations of earlier depositions is not thereby proven, but the fact remains that such U-turns did take place. One was so brazen that it induced a heart attack that proved fatal to the victim’s wife, another Justice – Mrs. Atinuke Ige. 
 
“That the prime suspect was privileged in a number of improper ways went beyond mere allegation. Political interventions, including pressure on the judiciary during bail hearings, cannot be denied. A judge under such pressure kept a diary with accusations, pages of which he consigned to friends for safekeeping.”