Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has raised an alarm over the safety of a former Minister of Power and Steel Development, Olu Agunloye, in Kuje Prison.
Politics Nigeria reports that Agunloye was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) at the FCT High Court on Wednesday in connection with the $6 billion Mambilla scam.
The former minister was remanded at the Kuje prison by the judge.
In a statement hours after the ruling, Soyinka alerted the federal government of an existing justifiable and high-level concern for Agunloye’s 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,” Soyinka said.
According to Soyinka, Bola Ige’s murder was not unconnected with the Mambilla scam adding that Agunloye worked closely with him, 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,” Soyinka said.
“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,” the award-winning novelist added.
