Young and handsome with a gentle and friendly mien, Sunday
Adeyemo would easily pass for a prey to any unwary, swashbuckling bully. What
more? The fair-skinned ‘gentleman’ looks shy and can be extremely humble and
unassuming when meeting people.
But, that is Sunday Adeyemo, the private citizen.
Across the major cities and several towns of the Southwest,
however, the approach of the same person as Sunday Igboho, by which, he is more
popularly known particularly within the political circle in the region,
especially in Oyo and Osun states invokes terror and trepidation. The name is a
household name, but, is mostly known for striking fear and terror in the minds
of people.
To many, the owner of the name is a political thug, a
mercenary who is often associated with violence and fights. At motor parks and
markets, the fear of Sunday Igboho and his boys is the beginning of wisdom.
Believed to possess powerful charms, so many myths are woven
around him. One of these was that when leading his boys to ‘war’, he only
needed to stretch forth his hand into the air to conjure a double-barrel of
which he was reputed to be adept at using.
Sometimes he goes about with a live snake coiled around his
neck that further reinforces the air of mystery and invincibility around him.
Such was his dread and power that he was also revered by the
strongman of Ibadan politics, the late Chief Lamidi Adedibu, to whom he was an
ally, but later fell apart with over the impeachment of former Oyo State
governor, Senator Rashidi Ladoja.
His intrepid opposition to moves to remove Ladoja from power
pitched him against the forces led by Adedibu, who earned the epaulets as the
Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) ‘garrison commander’ and marshal of political
violence that hallmarked the era.
He was unwavering in
his support for Ladoja, whom he served as body guard in the latter’s further
quest for reelection to the Government House in 2011 and 2015.
A chieftain of the Accord Party, Igboho, so named after his
hometown on the northern fringe of Oyo State, in this encounter with TUNDE
THOMAS, gave insights into his persona. He talked at length about his
relationships and experiences with key political figures in the impeachment
saga including former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ladoja, late Adedibu,
Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala and former Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Sunday
Ehindero, who he alleged ordered his arrest and detention in Abuja to pave way
for Ladoja’s removal, allegedly on the instruction of Obasanjo.
The politician also spoke about the role allegedly played by
Obasanjo, and Adedibu in the illegal impeachment, why he parted ways with
Alao-Akala, and his relationship with the current Oyo State governor, Senator
Abiola Ajimobi.
Among a host of other issues, he denied allegations of
violent crimes imputed to him, saying he was just a gentleman, who abhorred and
fought against injustice.
There are speculations that you’ve abandoned your political
benefactor and leader, former governor Rashidi Ladoja, and the Accord Party to
join APC. How true is this?
There is no iota of truth in that report. It is a tissue of
lie. I still remain a loyal and committed member of Accord Party. Senator
Rashidi Ladoja still remains my hero and political leader. Our aspiration is
for the Accord Party to assume the mantle of leadership in Oyo State through
democratic process. I have nothing to do with APC and I and Governor Ajimobi
are not on the same page politically. But, I give kudos to him for bringing
peace and security to Oyo State after the period of political crises that
rocked the state during the Ladoja and Alao-Akala years.
Was it as a result of your refusal to join APC that Governor
Ajimobi reportedly ordered your arrest on claims that you and your boys were
disturbing the peace of the state?
Nobody ordered my arrest. It is all part of the propaganda
against me by my political enemies. I’m
not evil they portrayed me as being. It is all rumour, nothing but rumour. Why
should I be arrested and detained? Did I kill anybody? What I can remember is
that some people were spreading falsehood using my name that Sunday Igboho and
his boys were disturbing some construction workers at a site where a road
project is being undertaken. They brought that report to me, and I laughed. Am
I that poor or starving that I should now send people out to go and extort
money? Far from it. To God be all the glory, I’m comfortable by all standards,
and I’m not starving.
In my area here in Ibadan, I’m a community leader in
Mosorire community in Oluyole Local Government area of Ibadan, and at present,
I’m constructing an access road which is also to be tarred, with me bearing all
the expenses. I’m here in my home, living my normal life and nobody has ordered
my arrest.
Your name, Sunday Igboho connotes terror to some people. At
the height of political disagreement and subsequent violence between supporters
of late Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, and former governor, Rashidi Ladoja, your name featured
prominently. As leader of Ladoja’s political thugs, you allegedly committed a
lot of atrocities. What’s your reaction to that?
It is true I was a key witness and also a key player in the
political developments of that period. I was an insider. Former governor,
Rashidi Ladoja, was my leader, my political boss. I rose and fought on his
behalf when late Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu and former president, Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo, wanted to carry out their illegal impeachment of Ladoja. By nature,
I’m a gentleman, but I hate cheating and injustice. I have my supporters who
are loyal to me and who also believe in me, just as I believe in Ladoja and I
was also loyal to him. Me and my supporters, who some people like to describe
as Sunday Igboho’s boys, decided to fight the injustice against Ladoja.
By nature, I’m not violent, but when the other party is not
only being violent, but also being openly supported by ex-President Obasanjo,
to the extent of even using police against Ladoja and his political interests,
we had no choice than to fight back. When we decided to fight back, people now
said Sunday Igboho and his boys were violent. When you give me a dirty slap, do
you expect me to turn the other cheek to you or to run away? God forbid, I
always fight for my right and I’m fearless and bold.
Were you just defending Ladoja just on account of loyalty,
or did you try to find out what was wrong between him and his estranged
godfather, Adedibu?
God is my witness. I believe in fairness. God again is my
witness if I lied, when they were hatching this impeachment plot against
Ladoja, they knew that I would be an obstacle to their plan, therefore Adedibu
sent for me. Adedibu said I should meet him at Kakanfo Inn, here in Ibadan and
when I got there that night, already seated with Adedibu was the then Oyo State
Commissioner of Police, Mr. Jonathan Johnson.
Adedibu later started talking, but at a point, I told him to
tell me the particular offence Ladoja committed. After hesitating a while,
Adedibu told me that they had concluded plans to impeach Ladoja, because Ladoja
was stingy and that he was not giving enough from monthly security votes he was
collecting from the Federal Government.
At this point, I now told Baba Adedibu that our own private
investigations, as youth leaders in the party, had revealed that he was
collecting N50 million monthly from Ladoja to take care of his political
interests and other things. When I made this revelation, Adedibu was shocked,
but he didn’t deny collecting N50 million monthly from Ladoja. I now told
Adedibu that if he insisted on collecting more, where did he expect Ladoja to
get fund to work and deliver on his electoral promises to the people. Adedibu
looked surprised and baffled.
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But he later gathered himself together, and then pointedly
told me that whether I liked it or not Ladoja would go. He further told me to
cooperate or they would look for ways to get me out of the way, in order to get
Ladoja out of government. At a point, he put the phone in the room on speaker,
and shortly after, he started discussing with former President Olusegun
Obasanjo.
Adedibu later told me that he and Obasanjo had agreed that I
should be compensated very well in order for me to abandon Ladoja. Adedibu
thereafter offered me N50 million, I rejected it, he later increased it to N100
million, but I still rejected it. Baba
Adedibu later asked me to name any price of my
choice, but I still stood my ground that I would fight against Ladoja’s
impeachment.
At this point, he told me he and Obasanjo had agreed that
Ladoja must be impeached by all means and at all cost, and that they would find
ways of getting me out of the way. But before I left him that night, I told
Baba Adedibu that they would not find it easy to achieve their diabolical plan.
In spite of your resolve to scuttle the impeachment move,
the plotters eventually had their way, what happened?
After my encounter with Baba Adedibu that night, I clearly
knew that the battle line had been drawn. I knew that we, loyal supporters of
Ladoja had to be vigilant. I also expressed my views to Ladoja, that this issue
was no longer a child’s play.
In spite of the police security around the governor,
political thugs from Baba Adedibu’s side continued their violent attacks on
Ladoja and his interests. There was a time that they invaded his private
residence in Ibadan and killed some of his supporters, but surprisingly the
police, who were supposed to be neutral, were already taking sides with Baba
Adedibu’s camp.
I remember clearly that the top police officer that came to
inspect the scene of the attack, in his comments, despite seeing the dead human
bodies, said he could only see dead cows and blood flowing from the dead cows.
With what was happening, I and my supporters increased our own surveillance
around Ladoja, and during that period my life was clearly in danger as those
notorious thugs working for Baba Adedibu had declared me a dead man.
However one day, that was in January 2006, I just woke up,
that should be January 11, 2006, I saw a team of policemen from Abuja, and they
told me that the then Inspector-General of Police, Sunday Ehindero, ordered
them to bring me to Abuja.
It was the following morning when I was in far away Abuja in
police custody that Adedibu’s thugs led by Lateef Salako, a.k.a Eleweomo,
struck, when they invaded Government House, Agodi and State House of Assembly,
and it was under the watch of these political
thugs that Ladoja was illegally impeached by a minority of the lawmakers
loyal to Baba Adedibu. Majority of the lawmakers who are loyal to Ladoja had to
take over and run for their lives.
It was later I realized that my arrest and detention by
Ehindero, who, I later learnt, acted on Obasanjo’s instruction, was to pave way
for the illegal impeachment of Ladoja. If I had been around, I would have
confronted Adedibu’s thugs with my own men and it would have been mother of all
battles. The second day after Ladoja was illegally removed, the police
authorities in Abuja freed me from detention without any charge, but by then
the deed had been done.
How do you see the role played by former President, Olusegun
Obasanjo, in the impeachment saga?
Obasanjo was clearly biased against Ladoja. I wouldn’t know
why the President of the whole nation decided to be partisan to the extent of
supporting illegality – I said illegality, because even the apex court in the
land, Supreme Court, declared that impeachment illegal – the court after 11
months of legal battle declared Ladoja’s impeachment illegal, and consequently
sacked Adebayo Alao-Akala, Baba Adedibu’s puppet, as the governor of Oyo State.
Honestly I believe Baba Obasanjo owed not only Senator Rashidi Ladoja, but the
entire nation an apology for supporting illegality. Obasanjo used police to
intimidate and harassed me for supporting Ladoja but I refused to succumb to
their blackmail.
Was your refusal to
buy into the plot to impeach Ladoja the reason you parted ways with
ex-governor, Adebayo Alao-Akala?
Ladoja is an upright man. You need to be close to him to
know the type of person that he is. He was determined as a governor to make a
change in Oyo State, but surprisingly, Baba Adedibu and some of his associates
insisted that he should be diverting state funds to private pockets. To me,
that’s unfair and that was one of the reasons I supported Ladoja.
On Alao-Akala, you know he was deputy to Ladoja, and I was
working and serving both of them as a loyal party member. It was later when
Alao Akala was exposed as being part of the plot against his boss, that I
decided to keep my distance from him.
How can I associate or work with a betrayer? No, it is not
possible. I’ve always associated with truth, goodness, equity and justice.
Forget whatever name my political enemies may be calling me. I have no
skeletons in my cupboard and that’s why I’m walking the streets a free man. We
all know what has happened to those political thugs Adedibu and Alao-Akala used
to try to destroy us then. God that I served is more powerful than them – where
are those thugs today that Adedibu and Alao-Akala used to launch several
violent attacks on me? Some of them are dead, while some have been jailed and
are now languishing in the prison. That’s the Law of Karma for you, whatever a
man sows, he will surely reap. Ex-gov. Alao-Akala tried to destroy me, but he
failed.
There was a time some thugs invaded my house allegedly on
the instruction of Alao-Akala, but I narrowly escaped being killed, but those
thugs killed my junior brother, Taofeek, a 300 level university undergraduate
then – Alao-Akala tried everything to woo me to his side, but, I refused. I
insisted on the truth, and for this, the then illegal government of Alao-Akala
persecuted me, and even when he later became a governor again, because he had
secured PDP’s ticket when Ladoja was reinstated by the Supreme Court, he
continued to unleash terror. But thank God I survived, and here I’m today
telling my story.
Why do you still remain loyal to Ladoja even years after he
had left office?
My support for Ladoja is based on principle. It is a matter
of principle. I was impressed with the way he resisted pressure from Baba
Adedibu and others that he should be bringing government money as if it is free
money. I considered anybody who could look Adedibu in the face and resist him
as a hero. Baba Adedibu was so powerful to the extent that only few, very few
could look him in the face and say NO to him.
What is your relationship with the present Governor Ajimobi?
We are not members of the same political party. He is APC
while I belong to Accord Party. But one thing I salute Ajimobi for is his
ability to restore peace and security to Oyo State after many years of
political violence. If you can recollect, at a time Ibadan was a theatre of war
between Ladoja’s supporters and Baba Adedibu and Alao-Akala’s political thugs.
They wanted to run us out of town, so they can continue their evil ways
unchallenged. But, we resisted them. I became a bone in Alao-Akala’s throat. He
thought he could use political thugs to crush us, but we resisted them. That
was the period my name became so popular to the extent that if the name Sunday
Igboho is mentioned, some people will start shivering. But I’m a man of peace.
I only fight injustice which I strongly detest.
Before, it was very risk to pass through such places in
Ibadan like Iwo road, Olomi, Beere, Agodi Gate in broad daylight, because of
frequent fighting and clashes between my men and thugs of ex-gov. Alao-Akala,
whom he funded to be terrorizing opponents of his government. But, I resisted
them and they couldn’t subdue my men.
At a time, it was reported that you were declared wanted by
the police in connection with some crimes, what was your offence and how far
with the case now?
It is all part of the propaganda by my political enemies.
I’m a free man. My hands are clean, I make bold to declare here through this
medium. And I challenge anybody with proof that I killed anybody or committed
any atrocity to come out publicly with evidence to prove it. I’m not being
investigated by any security agencies.
All those wicked lies and rumour against me were handiworks
of political thugs of ex-governor Alao-Akala. Some of the ex-governor’s
supporters also described me as a terror and thug, but I’m none of these. I’m a
politician and grassroots mobiliser, and that’s why different political leaders
always try to court me. I’m not into anything evil.
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