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Tag: Olusegun Osoba

  • Osoba at 90

    Osoba at 90

    • A historian who made history

    Two publications were on display during the celebration of his 90th birthday in his hometown, Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State. One was titled ‘Critical and contentious issues in the modern and contemporary history of Nigeria – Collected writings of Samuel Olusegun Osoba.’ The other was: ‘Minority Report and Draft Constitution for the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1976.’ The second publication was attributed to Osoba and Yusuf Bala Usman.

    Both publications give an insight into Osoba’s life and work.  He retired from Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, in 1991 after a distinguished career as a history lecturer. A two-day international conference held in his honour at Tai Solarin University of Education, in December 2023, underscored his stature as a scholar and progressive thinker.  The theme of the conference was: “History and the Persistent Struggle: Social Change, Nation Building and Constitution-Making in Post-Independence Africa.”

    At the event, Prof. Siyan Oyeweso described him as “a radical ideologist,” and “a foremost historian of the Nigerian left,” adding, “his strength is in the history of the oppressed and distressed people.” He said Osoba “spent his active service years actively involved in establishing cells around the university campuses leading to the establishment of several credible mass organisations with clear ideological focus.”  Also, Osoba’s daughter, Olayinka, said he “has always been about the masses, nation building in Nigeria, social justice, equity, human freedom.”

    This may well explain his disagreement with the majority members of the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) set up by the military government in 1976, which drafted Nigeria’s 1979 Constitution. His membership of the 49-member committee was a testimony to his recognition. The 65-page ‘Minority Report and Draft Constitution for the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1976,’ authored by Osoba and Dr Yusuf Bala Usman, recommended the removal of immunity clauses for presidents and governors, and set the minimum age for political office eligibility at 30. Their expression of dissent was an act of courage, principle and patriotism. The military government rejected the minority report, which was later published in 2019 and presented by Osoba in Lagos. 

    Read Also: Nigeria will drive Africa’s growth with education, innovation — Shettima

    Born on January 9, 1935, in Ijebu-Ode, in present-day Ogun State,  he attended Ijebu-Ode Grammar School (1947-53); Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, Ibadan (1954-56); University College Ibadan (1956-1959) and Moscow State University (1963-67). Earning his doctorate in Moscow, in the then Soviet Union and bastion of Socialism, was a defining influence on his socio-political perspective.  He taught in the Department of History, University of Ife, and OAU, Ile- Ife, following the university’s change of name (1967-91); his area of research interest was the social and intellectual history of modern Nigeria.

    He inspired generations of students at Ife. Importantly, he was a significant figure in the creation of the ‘Ife History School.’ His Marxist orientation influenced his approach to the teaching and writing of history, which critically focused on the actions of political actors and their implications for society.

     Regarded as the “foundational practitioner” of the radical political economy approach to history in Nigeria, he wrote notable essays that promoted this method. These, according to Ibrahim Abdullah in a newspaper article, include three “overlapping/interconnected” essays: “Ideological Trends in the Nigerian National Liberation Movement”; “The Nigerian Power Elite, 1952-65”; and “The Deepening Crisis of the Nigerian National Bourgeoisie.” They “lay the foundation for understanding the process of nation-making from the mid-1930s to the oil boom in the 1970s and the emergence of a Nigerian national bourgeoisie,” the writer stated. 

     In the course of Osoba’s academic career at Ife, he strikingly refused to apply for professorship in protest against the system, preferring to be addressed simply as ‘Doctor,’ despite his recognised qualification for professorship.  

    The celebrated historian’s work supports the study of history and underlines its value. We congratulate him as he enters his nonagenarian years. 

  • What my grandson told Tinubu during our visit to Bourdillon — Osoba

    What my grandson told Tinubu during our visit to Bourdillon — Osoba

    A former Ogun state governor, Olusegun Osoba, has revealed that his grandson engaged President Bola Tinubu in a discussion during their visit to Bourdillon on Christmas day.

    Osoba made this revelation during an interview on Arise Television on Tuesday, January 2.

    The former governor said his grandson had an audience with Tinubu and he gave the President “counter-information” during his discussion with him, adding that his grandson also used the opportunity to inform him (Tinubu) about happenings in Nigeria.

    Osoba said: “As to the pain, I have direct access to him and in the last 10 days, I have had two audiences with him and we’ve had very deep and serious discussions. As part of my own role as an elder statesman, I was there to give him counter information and I did just that. And I can assure you, he is a listening person.

    “I had a quality time with him on Christmas Day and even my grandson engaged him in discussion on Christmas Day. The young boy was very honest with him and told him some of the things that are going on in the country.

    “So, I can assure you, he’s very much on top of things,” he said.

    Osoba, however, assured Nigerians that President Tinubu will implement his Renewed Hope Agenda in 2024.

    He said: “I do agree that things are very tough for everybody irrespective of one’s status in the society. There’s nobody in this country who is not feeling the pain and the current hardship, that I would admit and that I will not pretend not to know. But the government at the same time is struggling very hard to contain the hardship and reduce the pain.”

    Read Also: Law to protect children from online violence underway, says Rep Osoba

    Reacting to the Peoples Democratic Party’s criticism of Tinubu’s New Year speech, the former governor said the main opposition party’s stance was expected.

    Tinubu during his New Year address to Nigerians on Monday, affirmed that Nigerians are frustrated because of the removal of fuel subsidy and the Naira devaluation.

    He said: “I am not oblivious to the expressed and sometimes unexpressed frustrations of my fellow citizens. I know for a fact that some of our compatriots are even asking if this is how our administration wants to renew their hope.

    “Over the past seven months of our administration, I have taken some difficult and yet necessary decisions to save our country from fiscal catastrophe. One of those decisions was the removal of fuel subsidy which had become an unsustainable financial burden on our country for more than four decades.”

    But the PDP described Tinubu’s New Year speech as a “harvest of deceit, false claims and empty promises.”

    In his reaction to the statement, Osoba said the main opposition party was nursing its “deep wound” from the loss of the 2023 presidential election.

    He said: “You don’t expect the PDP to see anything positive about this administration. They went to all lengths to ensure their dream of leading the country and they lost at all levels.

    “I think they are still nursing the deep wound, and therefore they will use all kinds of languages to describe the situation in the country. They are playing the role expected of the opposition.”

  • July people in the news

    The month of July has more than its fair share of the birthdays of eminent Nigerian achievers who have made great contributions to their professions, craft, or calling.

    All protocols observed, I would have to start this eclectic roll with the Nobelist and media person extraordinary, Professor Wole Soyinka, who turned 85 on July 13. Ceremonies to mark the milestone were staged in various cities.  He was characteristically missing from all of them, except the one that brought young men and women together to meet and parley with him in his Ijegba forest home.

    Those students were fortunate.  Soyinka rarely attends such ceremonies. In 2009, I had the honour of presenting the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism Lecture to mark his 75th birthday. It was a packed house, but the man of the hour was nowhere in sight.

    He was in some secret location – the space lab of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California, I suspect – undergoing a simulated space flight:  zero gravity, weightlessness, and all that, courtesy of a well-heeled friend.  The experience didn’t come cheap, he told me in an email, in case I was thinking it might be a good idea to check it out.

    Most of what we give others, Allan B Krueger, the late Princeton economist who studied happiness noted, are of little use and thoroughly disposable.  What counts most, according to that economist, is the gift of an experience, and the more exceptional the experience, the more valuable the gift.

    Soyinka’s friend must have thought long and hard about what to give the Nobelist as a birthday gift.  Cash?   That would be crass, insulting even. The choicest wines from Louis XIV’s cellar?  A better idea, to be sure, but the value diminishes when you share it with others, as Soyinka is sure to do.

    But simulated space flight?  How many people can claim to have experienced it?  Several hundreds, and among them, Soyinka may well be at that time the only African.

    I doubt whether he has described that experience in any of his numerous writings.  Perhaps he is saving it for another magnum opus.

    Congratulations, sir, and very many pleasant birthdays yet.

    There must be something in the Nigerian air and water highly conducive to the birth of would-be journalists and media people.  Just think of this constellation for a moment:   Lateef Kayode Jakande, Prince Henry Kayode Odukomaiya, and Olusegun Osoba.

    Jakande, dean of Nigerian editorialists, incisive columnist who plied his trade in the Nigerian Tribune under the pen name John West, newspaper editor, author and one of the most accomplished public figures in Nigeria’s history, turned 90 on July 23.

    The tributes were not in the least feigned. If they were also somewhat muted, it was mainly on account of the great man’s inexplicable refusal to quit the loathsome Sani Abacha’s cabinet even as Abacha had was tearing apart almost everything that Jakande had spent his lifetime promoting – freedom of the press, the rule of law, and democratic institutions.

    Former Daily Times editor Tony Momoh once told me in the run-up to the Second Republic that when Jakande was elected first civilian governor of Lagos State, he prayed fervently and frequently for his success.  Why? I asked him.  Why Jakande in particular?

    Because, Momoh said, Jakande’s success would put paid to the canard that journalists were only good at stirring things up.

    More than three decades later, Jakande’s tenure still stands as a benchmark for good governance.  If all he achieved in five years was the streamlining of the chaotic multi-tier system of primary and secondary education in Lagos State, that would have been achievement enough.  But he accomplished that only in his first year.

    Henry Kayode Odukomaiya, who turned 85 on July 10 is arguably the most versatile newspaperman Nigeria has produced in recent memory:  news reporter, feature writer, editorialist, production wizard, and newsapaper administrator. At the Daily Times where he was deeply but quietly revered (he operated under the shadow of the great Babatunde Jose) for his exacting standards.  At subsequent stops at the Concord Newspapers and the Champion, he left indelible footsteps.

    Olusegun Osoba, cracker-jack reporter, astute media manager, exemplar of the reporter as a judicious insider and nimble political actor and statesman, turned 80 on July 15 and launched his engrossing memoirs Battlelines:  Adventures in Journalism and Politics, which I had the privilege of reading in manuscript.  It lives up to its author’s reputation for getting the inside dope, for fast footwork, and for counter-punching.

    Osoba was a master of networking well before the term came into popular use.  Having learned early that, in Nigeria, the decisions on who gets what, when and how, are taken at night, he made himself a nocturnal operator.  That kept him abreast of the decision-makers and ahead of everybody else.

    His knowledge of how the system functions and his vast network of contacts helped catapult him to the top at the Daily Times ultimately and, en route, turn the Daily Sketch in Ibadan and The Nigerian Herald in Ilorin into newspapers of national reckoning.

    One of the things I found most revealing in the book was the plot to dump Osoba and replace him as chief executive at the Daily Times with Prof Alfred Opubor, who had at one and the same time served as head of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of Lagos, chair of the board of the News Agency of Nigeria, and chair of the Bendel Newspapers, publishers of the Observer.

    Osoba worked the phones, did his nocturnal rounds, and foiled it. He was in my judgment a better fit for the job anyway.

    Though strictly not a media person, Ajibola Ogunshola is deservedly honoured as such.  He would not  kowtow to military president Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha in their craven bid to emasculate the Independent press.  He turned around the fortunes of the Punch.  He drew up and enforced the ethical  principles on which it is grounded.

    But presiding at the Punch was a detour for the pre-eminent African actuary, who turned 75 on July 14?  His 70th was a class act that bore his accustomed painstaking attention to detail. Unfortunately he lost his daughter Yetunde, a person of remarkable intellectual and professional attainments and of vast promise to a rare form of cancer on the eve of his 75th birthday.

    My condolences again, Ba’royin.

    For entrepreneurial chutzpah and innovativeness, it would be hard to beat Nduka “The Duke” Obaigbena, the Thisday publisher who turned 60 on July 14.   Who but Obaigbena would have sent to whomsoever it may concern an advisory that it would be a good idea to buy media space and airtime to congratulate him on the occasion?

    But this may just be yet another tale by those from whom Obaigbena commands respect and dread in equal measure.

    The reader will have noticed, if not pardoned, my partiality to media people even in this necessarily eclectic outing, as if they alone qualify as eminent achievers among those born in July who have made distinguished contributions to their profession, craft, or calling.   Not in the least.

    I am thinking of our pre-eminent cardiologist, erudite scholar and university Administrator, racounteur and wit, Professor Oladipo Akinkugbe, who turned 85 on July 10.  Equally versed in the humanities and the sciences, and a gifted writer to boot, he is emblematic of the cultivated man in the finest sense of that term, a savant.   It makes sense, then, that bird-watching is his hobby.

    Come up with some bon mot, and he would instantly tell you its source. I once struggled in his presence to recall the name of the English man of the nobility quoted to have said, by way of advice to a young man about to get married:  “Don’t.”

    Professor Akinkugbe came up with it effortlessly.  In vain do I struggle to recall it even now.

    I am also thinking of his younger namesake and fellow laureate of the National Order of Merit, Professor Oladipupo Adamolekun, distinguished international civil servant, who turned 75 on July 21.

    As an undergraduate at the University of Ibadan in the 60s, he was one of the brave souls who undertook to distribute copies of The Tribune which the beleaguered authorities in Western Nigeria considered seditious through.  Today, he writes an occasional column for Vanguard Newspapers.

    There has got to be some printer’s ink in his DNA.

    To all July people named here and those inadvertently omitted, a belated happy birthday.

     

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  • How I escaped assassination four times, by Osoba

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, Chief Olusegun Osoba, on Sunday reflected on how he escaped assassination five times during the military regime.

    He recalled that he was a ‘marked man’ because of his objection to the annulment of the historic June 12, 1993 presidential election won by the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, Chief Moshood Abiola.

    Although the eminent politician and two-time governor of Ogun State said he did not know that a price had been put on his head by the late Head of State Gen. Sani Abacha’s elite strike force, he had lived to thank God for his survival.

    Osoba, journalist, businessman and elder statesman reflected on the dark days of the military rule in his 341-paged memoir: ‘Battlelines: Adventures in Journalism and Politics,’ published by Diamond Publications Limited. The book will be presented to the public next Monday as part of activities marking his 80th birthday in Lagos.

    The veteran journalist and former Managing Director of Daily Times said little did he guess that he was also marked for liquidation after his friend, the late Dr. Alex Ibru, and his leader, the late Senator Abraham Adesanya, were shot in Lagos.

    He recalled: “I never knew my life was hanging by a thread until Sergeant Rogers revealed that I was high on the list of Nigerians targeted for death by the hit squad. I was, therefore, in total shock when I learnt of the conflict and confusion between Sergeant Rogers and Major Al-Mustapha during their interrogation by the Special Investigation Panel set up by the transitional military regime under General Abdulsalami Abubakar after Abacha’s death.

    “In the drama, well captured by TELL magazine (February 13, 2012, p. 35) Rogers’ boss, Al-Mustapha, vehemently denied ever sending him to kill anyone. An enraged Sergeant Rogers countered, insisting: “You sent me. You sent us to RUTAM House. You sent us on an assignment for the assassination of Alex Ibru, Kudirat Abiola, Segun Osoba, Bola Ige, (and) Abraham Adesanya. You sent us on these assignments.”

    “When Al-Mustapha persisted in his denial, Rogers rebuked him sharply. “I believe you should be bold enough to come out and say the truth. Why (are you) denying this? I believe you should be bold. Because you’ve been telling us that you are going to protect us, we should not worry. You should be bold enough to come out. And you are a major!” This drama was set against the backdrop of the June 12, 1993 crisis and its aftermath.”

    Osoba lamented that the polity trembled under Abacha when his killer squad went after pro-democracy crusaders and anti-annulment forces, including the late Chief Alfred Rewane, the late Mrs. Kudirat Abiola, the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), Commodore Dan Suleiman and Lt-Gen. Alani Akinrinade, whose property were burnt by soldiers.

    Painting an awful picture of repression and intimidation, the former governor said it was confounding to him that members of the killer squad waited in front of his house for a whole day to kill him, as claimed by Sergeant Rogers.

    He added: “It was the divine hand of God at play also when, unknown to me, Rogers had trailed my car from Lagos to Sagamu interchange with intent to kill me, but was delayed at a military checkpoint, shortly after I had passed, long enough for me to vanish from their sight till I got to Abeokuta. Aside from Rogers’ failed attempt, I escaped my killers on many occasions, most of the time without even knowing that a death squad was stalking me.”

    Narrating series of attempts on his life, Osoba said: The first attempt on my life was on the night of August 23, 1994 when my house was invaded. Fortunately, members of my family had travelled out of the country. Nobody was home, except the state security agent attached to me as a former state governor.

    “Suspecting that the intruders were armed robbers, he opened fire on them. When he exhausted his ammunition, he scaled the fence and took cover in our neighbour’s compound. My gatekeeper was not so lucky. He was shot and wounded in the head. He was rushed to Royal Cross Medical Centre, Obalende, where Dr. Seyi Roberts and Dr. Doyin Okupe attended to him and saved his life.

    “It was clear to me that this was the handiwork of Abacha’s goons. There was no evidence of breaking in. They gained access with their expert security keys without damage to my bulletproof doors. They ransacked my bedroom, took my expired passport, as well as letters Chief M.K.O. Abiola had written to me from his detention. This incident happened on the eve of August 24, 1994, Abiola’s first birthday in detention, which we had planned to mark with a mass rally at Abiola’s residence in Ikeja.

    “That same August 23, 1994, Chief Gani Fawehinmi’s office was also hit and his security man, badly injured. The next day, Abacha’s thugs went to Air Commodore Dan Suleiman’s house where they attempted to burn the house down.”

    Osoba recalled that when the killer squad visited again, they burnt his house, adding that he escaped by whiskers.

    He stressed: “They struck again on September 7, 1995, when they set my house in Abeokuta on fire at about 2am. Fortunately, I don’t sleep early. I just heard a spark. By the time I rushed out of bed, the whole place was filled with smoke. My Boys Scout and leadership training programmes in Man O’War Bay during my secondary school days had taught me that when there is fire, you don’t stand erect. Instead, you crawl, to avoid inhaling carbon monoxide that could suffocate and kill. That was what saved me.

    “My bedroom was totally burnt. I lost a lot of documents, photographs and irreplaceable valuables.

    I headed straight to the Fire Brigade in Abeokuta to seek help. Providentially, I had re-equipped and modernized the Fire Brigade in 1993 when I was governor. I reaped the dividends. They contained the fire.”

    Osoba said after their failed attempts in Abeokuta, the ruthless killers came to his Dolphin Estate home in Lagos and laid siege for a whole day, adding that, unknown to them, he had gone out on a visit to his neighbours, Mr. Segun Olusanya, Chief John Akinleye and Chief Adeyi.

    He added: “If Rogers and his squad had known my habit, they would have ambushed me during one of my evening visits to my neighbours. The confession of Sergeant Rogers made the headlines in all the newspapers on January 12, 2000. The Punch screamed: “Rogers Weeps”. The National Concord reported: “Rogers Opens Up.

    “The Comet, which later morphed into The Nation, reported: “Sergeant Rogers Speaks at last: How we went in search of Porbeni, Ige, Ibru, Osoba, Adesanya on killing missions”. Whilst being cross-examined by then Lagos State Commissioner for Justice, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, Rogers disclosed how as a member of the Strike Force he had been assigned to assassinate four persons.

    “According to him, “They are the owner of The Guardian newspaper, Mr. Alex Ibru, Chief Segun Osoba, Mr. Bola Ige and Pa Abraham Adesanya. He (Mustapha) gave us some money through the OC MOPOL. He also gave us N25, 000 to give Danbaba for a work well done.”

    Osoba pointed out that, although Rogers did not know his Ikoyi residence, an informant, one Alhaji Lateef, who spoke Hausa fluently, gave a clear description of the house in Dolphin Estate.

    The former governor said vigilance was the watchword during the dark days, noting that his wife, Aderinsola, was also being trailed to her school and market.

    To report suspicious movements around the house, he said his wife, a former customs officer,  strategically gave permission to some tyre vulcanizers to ply their trade opposite the house to enable them report suspicious movements or activities.

    Osoba said when he went underground for almost a year, security agents from Alagbon Close, Ikoyi usually invaded his family’s privacy to ransack the building between 2 am and 3 am under the guise of looking for him.

    He said he literality fell into depression when Mustapha and others were discharged and acquitted in court, adding that he only regained his composure after the Guardian newspaper on July 31, 2013 came out with a well researched and lucid editorial, which reflected his concerns.

    Venting his anger, Osoba said: “What the judgment has done is to authenticate impunity. It reinforces the conviction that here in Nigeria, only the small man pays for his crimes. Above all, it means that all those behind the dastardly acts and litany of woes freely dispensed by the Abacha regime have finally got away, literally with murder, in a manner that calls to question the essence of government or its readiness or capacity of discharge its basic responsibility of protecting lives and property, and enforcing law and order.

    “With justice now put off over these murders and the killers still unfound, the cleansing Nigeria needs remains elusive. And the blood of the victims, still raw on the pavement of the hearts of Nigerians, cry out ever more loudly for justice.”

    Osoba disclosed that when he decided to go under, a prominent businessman, Dr. Oba Otudeko, took the risk of hiding him in his office for about six weeks. However, when he came out of hiding,  he was promptly arrested and detained at Police Force Headquarters.

    The former governor recalled that he escaped being arrested for the second time in June 1994, after he led former Edo State Governor John Odigie- Oyegun, his Anambra State counterpart, Emeka Ezeife and Dr. Doyin Okupe to Abiola at his Ikeja residence to discuss his proposed declaration as president.

    He said: “On my way back from Abiola’s Ikeja residence, my wife called me up again on my cell phone to inform me that the house had been sealed up by security operatives who were looking for me. This was around 9 pm. I quickly diverted to my father-in-law’s residence in Yaba and sent the driver away.

    Read Also: Osoba’s cold wars and last laugh

    “When I called my wife up that I had taken refuge at her father’s, she objected on the ground that it would be too easy for the government to figure it out that such a place would be my likely port of call. Thanks to her quick thinking, she suggested that I should relocate to Abule-Oja, to the home of my auntie, Princess (Mrs.) Adefunmilayo Aderinsola Oyekan-Williams.

    “How did I survive in Abule-Oja? My hostess was a lady of the old Lagos stock. Hers was an impeccably clean and well-ordered home, where everything was in the proper place. The environment spoke volumes of her background as the elder sister to the then Oba Adeyinka Oyekan II, the Oba of Lagos. Hers was an enviable pedigree of well trained Isale Eko Christian family.

    “With a well trained house-help, Mama and I were alone upstairs in her apartment. A young man and his fiancé lived downstairs. I therefore felt very secure here. An octogenarian, she treated me like a child, waking up at night to check that I was well and safe.

    Recalling how he escaped being captured for the third time, Osoba said: “The third in my series of hide-and-seek games with the Abacha Security machinery occurred one quiet Saturday morning in 1995 when my chauffeur, Peter, called me up on the intercom at home that he needed to brief me on an important security development.

    “Agitated, he informed me that he was suspicious of some strange movements around the house. He said he saw my chief detail as governor alighting on the main road and that the car from which he dropped drove past the house with some people only to return empty. I got the message that my former chief detail, an SSS operative, must have escorted some of his colleagues to identify my residence. I asked Peter to take my wife’s school bus.

    “I climbed in and lay flat on the floor and managed to escape what turned out to be an attempt to arrest me. At Ikoyi hotel I dropped off, hailed a cab and headed straight to the mainland residence of my brother-in-law, Mr. Stan Olawanle Adeyemi. This was the beginning of almost one year in self-imposed detention. Stan and Gboyega Onabanjo (Chief Bisi Onabanjo’s son) were the only persons who knew my hideout. Stan arranged a Togolese cook to cater to my needs throughout. My only means of communications was my 090 mobile phone.”

    Osoba lamented that gruesome murders outlived the military regime, stressing that eminent Nigerians, including the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige, Chief Harry Marshall (March 3, 2003) Aminasori Alfred Dikibo (February 6, 2004), Funso Williams (July 27, 2006), Kunle Arojo, Dipo Dina, and the Lukotun of Ake, Chief Yomi Bamgbose, the Iyaloja of Ijebu Ode , Alhaja Alimot Shadia Elewuju, the Onimole of Lagos, Kayode Adesina,  Animashaun Age, and Gen. Muhammadu Shuwa, were assassinated after the restoration of civil rule.

  • The Yoruba Question in Postcolonial Nigeria

    How time flies in the Nigerian crypt!!! A few weeks back, in preparation for his eightieth birthday which actually came a week after, Nigeria’s notable political play-maker, newspaper baron and reporter extraordinaire, Akinrogun Segun Osoba, gathered the cream of Nigerian society together for the launch of his memoir at Eko Hotel.

    As usual with Osoba, the whole thing was put together with meticulous and painstaking attention to details, brimming with class and conviviality.  Not known to give anything to chance or mere happenstance, the celebrant himself was known to have slipped out of the venue in the early hours of the morning after supervising the dress rehearsal.

    In the event, it turned out to be a movable feast with the hall overflowing with movers and shakers of contemporary Nigerian society. You must give this to Osoba, there is nobody in contemporary Nigerian journalism or politics who can boast of his vast connections or his capacity for high-wire networking and nocturnal carousals in the deepest sanctuaries of power. Smart, knowledgeable and dependable when it comes to protecting and respecting the integrity of his sources, the Egba-born chief is also a man of immense personal charms and cultivation.

    The accolades, encomiums and delivered tributes were raining down fast and furious this temperate mid-morning. For Osoba, it was a canonization of sorts as a doyen of journalism and as a political don. In a public career spanning almost sixty years during which he reached the apex of his chosen profession (journalism), and his adoptive career, (politics),  Osoba can be said to have seen it all. In the process, he has survived crippling controversies and damaging rumours. As the Chinese will put it: If you stay long enough at the bank of the river, the bodies of your enemies will wash by.

    It is a measure of the vast centrality of Osoba to the Yoruba Question in the combustible postcolonial conundrum that Nigeria has become that his remarkable rise in the politics of his beloved nation should be used to illustrate, illuminate and interrogate the plight of Yoruba dwellers in the postcolonial space named Nigeria.

    In a chilling advertisement of unresolved contradictions and political palavers to come, Osoba’s birthday bash was preceded by a nasty public spat with Chief Ayo Adebanjo, the Afenifere grandee and political pugilist exemplary.

    As it is well known, Pa Adebanjo is a rough and ready veteran of the old Action Group ‘up and at em’ school of political hostilities. He does not take hostages and neither does he believe in the Geneva Convention for handling political prisoners. Like old Joe Frazier, aka Smokin’ Joe, Papa comes swinging in relentless political attrition. Luckily, Osoba himself was a boxer in his youth.

    Yet the public spat between the two notable Yoruba sons indicate the tortuous trajectory of ethnic politics in the last twenty years of post-military Nigeria. The spat would have been unthinkable in the months after the demise of General Abacha, Nigeria’s most ferocious military dictator and maximum ruler till date.

    At that point in time, the Afenifere, as a result of its leading role and sterling contribution to the liberation of the Yoruba race from Nigeria’s military despots, had the entire Yoruba nation under its writ and authority. Its firm sway was unchallenged and unchallengeable except by the politically suicidal. Its leader, Abraham Adesanya, who had escaped Abacha’s bullets by the whiskers, was universally acknowledged as the leader of the Yoruba people at home and abroad.

    Osoba had escaped Afenifere’s severe sanctions by the skin of his teeth over what was perceived as his colluding and collaborative stance towards the much despised military oligarchy. Osoba’s retort was that as a tested politician who had to survive to fight another day, he needed to warehouse his teeming supporters by aligning with one of Abacha’s leprous parties.

    Unable to overrun or overpower Osoba politically, the old men agreed to a power-sharing truce which saw them imposing his deputy. It was a typically Yoruba fudge which was to repeat itself in Osun, Lagos and Ekiti in different variations and variables and it shows in bold relief the clash of political values and the monstrous contradictions of a people caught in the vortex of a multi-ethnic nation in traumatic transition.

    The subsequent elections ended in a massive victory among the Yoruba people for the Afenifere-powered AD. But as it often happens to the ascendant Yoruba leadership after each successful mobilization of the people, the wheels began to come off the train shortly thereafter. As an unstable ideological coalition and ensemble of irreconcilable personal ambition, the dominant Yoruba post-independence leadership has never been able to manage the spoils of victory.

    In bitter defiance of an Afenifere leadership that he felt had betrayed him and had sought to destroy him politically, Bola Ige, brilliant orator, poet and master political strategist, went his own way and joined the Obasanjo government first as Attorney General and later as Minister of Mines and Power. He was assassinated in December,2001. By then, the cracks had widened and a splinter group emerged filled with Ige loyalists.

    Thereafter, a tense truce obtained between the core leadership of Afenifere and the AD governors. It was a case of a nuclear deterrent borne out of the logic of mutually assured destruction. With military precision and devastating ingenuity, Obasanjo was engineering a massive internal fracturing of opposition parties and AD was to bear the brunt of the offensive.

    By early December 2002 when yours sincerely came home from his United States’ base to unveil his latest novel, it was obvious that all was not well with both the Afenifere and the AD. But the tense truce somehow prevailed. At the ceremony graciously and gracefully presided over by Governor Osoba for which this columnist remains eternally grateful, all the great Afenifere leaders were in full attendance: Pa Abraham Adesanya, Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Senator Cornelius Olatunji Adebayo, our former teacher at Ife, and their numerous loyalists.

    The Yoruba forest quaked and rumbled with the presence of these political pachyderms that morning at the iconic Airport Hotel, Ikeja. It was perhaps the last great public sighting together of these Yoruba titans. Despite the stress and strains of untoward political developments, Pa Adesanya was particularly in his elements with his wisdom-laden witty repartees and heavy-duty innuendoes hinting of the need to inject new blood into Yoruba leadership and the urgency of broadening the process of leadership recruitment.

    But fourteen months later on March 15, 2004 when yours sincerely returned to deliver the maiden Afenifere lecture, all the pretences had disappeared and full-scale civil hostilities reigned supreme in Yorubaland. A political tsunami triggered from Aso Rock had swept off all the AD governors including Osoba but with Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the lone survivor.

    The falcon could no longer hearken to the falconer and bitter recrimination was loosed on the Yoruba nation with the Afenifere grandees accusing the AD governors of insubordination and perfidy and with the governors charging back that it was the old men who betrayed the party and the Yoruba nation to Obasanjo’s wily machination.

    A blossoming romance between the old men and Gbenga Daniel, Osoba’s presumed electoral conqueror, could not have been designed to smooth ruffled feathers. The old men retorted that Daniel was a staunch member of the Afenifere group right from his days as a youthful student of the University of Lagos.

    It was perhaps the proverbial last straw. By 2007, everybody had gone their different ways with Osoba teaming up with Tinubu to form the AC while the remaining Afenifere faithful floated a party called DPA which adopted General Buhari as its presidential flag bearer. Meanwhile, Daniel happened to have belonged to the PDP.

    Two weeks ago, in an engrossing irony which underscores the harshly expedient nature of contemporary Yoruba politics,  Justus Gbenga Daniel sat resplendent in the front row of the crowd that came to honour Chief Segun Osoba having teamed up with Osoba to dislodge Ibikunle Amosu and his nominee from his Olumo redoubt.

    But while all this is going on and while Afenifere sustains its blistering anti-Buhari broadsides, it is the much berated Obasanjo who is gaining traction and making inroad into the heart of the Yoruba political mob with his campaign against the “Fulanization” of the nation and the mismanagement of our ethnic diversity by the Buhari administration.

    It is clear from all this that all is not well once again and the Yoruba nation is at the proverbial political cross-roads. Obasanjo must be chuckling to himself when Yoruba governors, in what is known in legal parlance as an overstatement of insecurity, exploded at their Akure summit that they were not bastards. Well….

    It shows the phenomenal pressures building up on all sides. The closeness of the last presidential election in the South West betrayed a Yoruba ambivalence about a paradigm-changing handshake across the Niger which has brought national relevance and strategic visibility to many of their children but which has also eventuated in poverty, general insecurity and looming famine as a result of the activities of murderous Fulani herdsmen and the tardy response of the federal authorities.

    Like all nationalities that have found themselves boxed into a multi-ethnic cauldron of seething hostilities and mutual incomprehension, the Yoruba are equally traumatized by the Nigerian conundrum. The result is a certain ambivalence and vacillation when it comes to the Nigerian project. As people of empire, it has been wired into the Yoruba DNA to have a conservative reverence for the state as the ultimate guarantor of order, peace, security and stability.

    Going by this worldview, order and stability are to be cherished over and above anarchy and social cannibalism. In more than a thousand years of relentless experimentation with statehood in its clinical and classical feudal mode, the Yoruba have evolved away from some of their near neighbours who have had to forge a different route despite physical closeness and geographical proximity. This is a source of abiding tension and mutual irritability, often leading to accusations of betrayal and perfidy.

    The subsisting reverence and affection the Yoruba people have for their monarchs show the lingering ideological efficacy of the old formation despite the cessation of its material and political basis. Last week, it was the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, who issued a yellow card to the federal authorities as a result  of what he called the nation’s slide into anarchy and general disorder. It shows the progressive libertarian streak of the Yoruba nation coming to the fore as they warm up for a final confrontation over the destiny of the nation.

    Yet in all this, there is need for utmost caution so that we do not goad our people to the altar of mindless slaughter in the hands of a Nigerian post-colonial state which has turned out to be the ultimate fascist terror machine. This is not the time to start issuing unenforceable orders. Sheer desperation is not a strategy but a sign of political impotence.

    This time calls for visionary leaders and strategic thinkers. While not being a military leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was an exemplary politician and strategic thinker whose choices of political action were always guided by an acute awareness of the balance of forces at play. This he demonstrated during a grave period of Yoruba history in the aftermath of his release from prison and the terrible events emanating from the two coups of 1966.

    Rather than resorting to empty sabre-rattling, those who consider themselves Awolowo’s true heirs must go back to the events of that period and learn appropriate lessons of history. According to a great Chinese general, the best victory in war is the one won without firing a single shot. Here is wishing Chief Segun Osoba many happy returns of the 15th of July.

  • Okurounmu lied against me, says Osoba

    Former Ogun State Governor Olusegun Osoba  has described ex-Afenifere Secretary Senator Femi Okurounmu as “a frustrated, failed and unfulfilled politician”.

    He said Okurounmu lied against him in his memoirs by labelling him as a traitor, double dealer and secret agents for the military during the June 12 struggle.

    Osoba, who took exception to the senator’s claim that he betrayed the symbol of the struggle, the late  Chief Moshood Abiola, threatened to go to court.

    The former governor told reporters in Lagos that the relentless attacks against him by Okurounmu were borne out of envy and wickedness.

    He said: “I will not descend into using uncouth, insulting and gutter languages like Senator Okurounmu did by referring to me as a traitor, a security agent and a double dealer.  In spite of his sustained attacks on me in the last two weeks, I was unruffled and unmoved as a tested fighter and warrior”.

    “On the day I launched my book, I showed series of pictures and one was me as boxer at the age of 10.  I also titled my book, ‘Battlelines’, to show a lot of the blackmail that I suffered in both my professional and political life.

    “As for Okurounmu, I will describe him as a frustrated, unfulfilled politician as well as a failure in his chosen profession. His relentless attacks on me are borne out of jealousy and the major factor is envy and wickedness.”

    Osoba added: “Yoruba language is highly proverbial and Yoruba will describe Okurounmu’s situation as somebody suffering from proverb that says ‘Ija ilara kii tan boro, Anjuwon ko see wi l’ejo’ which means ‘when you are envious you carry that burden almost forever and an envious character cannot easily say the reason why he is envious, particularly God has been too kind and generous to the person he is envious of’. That is the situation between me and Okurounmu.”

    Osoba refuted Okurounmu’s claim that he collaborated with the late dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, while claiming to be a member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO).

    He said the departed heroes of the struggle are turning in their graves by the tissue of lies, pleading that their spirits should forgive the senator.

    Read Also: Clark tackles Osoba for denigrating Confab Report

    Osoba said: “My answer to that is I pray to God in heaven and our heroes, many who died in the course of the struggle, particularly those unsung, too many people that suffered that are unsung; but I will be specific with our leaders that wherever they are in heaven, I appeal to them to forgive Okurounmu at 80 because the insinuation that the military government was after me because I was an agent is false.

    “Sergeant Rogers was categorical when he was cross-examined by Prof. Yemi Osinbajo,  a renowned authority in the Law of Evidence who was then the Attorney-General of Lagos State.

    “He mentioned names of those of us who were marked down and they were instructed to assassinate.

    “I appeal to the spirit of Kudirat Abiola, Alfred Rewane, the spirit  of Bola Ige, who died in the hands of assassins, the spirit of Olu Onagoruwa , the spirit of those who were hit and a lot of them died in the cause, which include Papa Abraham Adesanya, my brother, good friend and soul mate Alex Ibru. I can go and mention names of those who were marked down by the evidence given in court.”

    “I am still alive. If they were after me as a security collaborator and agent, then Okurounmu destroyed the spirit of these people, who died in the cause that all of us who were marked down as stated in the evidence recorded in court that we are all agents.  May the spirit of those who died in the cause forgive Okurounmu.  May their souls continue to rest in peace but what he has done is making all of them turn in their graves”.

    Osoba also rejected Okurounmu’s claim that his governorship election in the Third Republic was funded by former military President Ibrahim Babangida.

    He described Okurounmu as  a poor student of history, adding that he needed no money from the military junta as the two registered political parties, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC) were fully funded by the military  government.

    He stressed: “I’m shocked and disappointed at the lack of knowledge and intellectualism displayed by Okurounmu, who claimed to be a PhD holder.  If you are a student of history, the two party system, a little to the right and a little to the left in my time, were well and openly funded by the President Babangida’s government

     

  • Buhari, Oyetola, Abiodun, Okowa, others greet Osoba at 80

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday led governors and other eminent personalities in congratulating veteran journalist and former Ogun State Governor Olusegun Osoba on his 80th birthday.

    The birthday was beautifully heralded last Monday in Lagos with the launch of Osoba’s memoir, “Battlelines: Adventures in Journalism and Politics”.

    Buhari felicitated with family, friends, professional colleagues and political associates of the elder statesman and loyal All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwart.

    Also on Sunday, Governors Adegboyega Oyetola (Osun), Dapo Abiodun (Ogun) and Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta) separately described Osoba as a leader with great accomplishment in his journalism profession and as an administrator.

    The Ogun State APC extolled his virtues, describing him as “an epitome of integrity and service”.

    A former member of the House of Representatives, Kunle Adeyemi, called the former governor a “die-hard progressive and staunch believer in grassroots development”.

    Buhari, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said Osoba has successfully translated words into action by fully participating in politics and governance, and leaving a legacy of service as a governor of his state in two republics – 1992-1993 and 1999-2003.

    The President hailed Osoba’s unwavering commitment to building strong institutions that would encourage participatory democracy and development in the country.

    He noted that their many conversations, including the visit to the State House last week, had always centered on Nigeria and her people, with wise and insightful counsels on engendering a better country.

    “President Buhari prayed that the almighty God will grant the former governor longer life, good health and strength to continue serving the country he loves so much, and bless his family,” the statement said.

    Oyetola, in a letter to the APC leader, also noted Osoba’s “contributions to the development of the country and service to humanity over the years”

    According to a statement by his Chief Press Secretary (CPS) Mr. Adeniyi Adesina, the governor said: “Your attainment of the octogenarian rank attests to the fact that you have enjoyed tremendous divine grace and blessings from the Almighty God.

    “You have distinguished yourself in all your endeavours as a journalist, political leader, governor, administrator and elder statesman.

    “Your impact as a two-time Ogun State Governor is etched on the minds of citizens and residents of the state. No wonder you were bestowed with important chieftaincy titles in acknowledgement of your performance by the key traditional rulers in the state.

    “As you look forward to your next birthday, I, on behalf of my family, the government and people of Osun State, share in your celebration and pray that the Almighty God will continue to protect you and grant you good health and longer life.”

    To Abiodun, “Chief Osoba will be remembered for his resilience, tenacity of purpose and political brinkmanship that has honour”.

    In a statement by his Chief Press Secretary Kunle Somorin, Abiodun said: “The title ‘statesmen’ is not an honorific ascribed or acclaimed by default of social status. It is a journey through the path of excellence, sacrifice, selflessness and dedication to the destination of honour and fulfillment.

    “You have journeyed that path for eight decades as a thoroughbred reporter, politician and administrator.”

    He said as a political son of Osoba, he has learnt a lot from the octogenarian, saying: “We are so very proud of the heritage you bequeath to us”

    Okowa described Osoba as an “accomplished patriot and role model to modern day journalists in Nigeria”.

    A statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mr. Charles Aniagwu, in Asaba, noted that Osoba did not only excel in journalism, but also in politics, culminating in his election as Ogun State governor on two different occasions.

    The governor lauded the celebrant for his exclusive reports that shook the nation in his heydays in the journalism profession, adding: “Chief Osoba is a man of “courage and resilience”, whose selflessness is worthy of emulation by the younger generation of journalists and politicians.

    The Ogun State APC extolled his virtues, describing him as “an epitome of integrity and service.”

    The Ogun APC, in a statement on Sunday by its Publicity Secretary, Caretaker Committee, Tunde Oladunjoye, remarked that it acknowledged the ex-governor’s contributions to the overall growth of Nigeria and the state.

    The party added that Osoba is a pillar the party rested on when it was abandoned and also confronted by the party’s biggest beneficiary in the last eight years.

    Read Also: Osoba: No longer waiting for Godot

    The party stated:  “As you celebrate your  80th birthday today sir, we acknowledge and appreciate your contributions to the overall development of Nigeria, especially Ogun State. As a leader, you have demonstrated uncommon passion for mentoring and actualisation of common goals for the benefit of the greater majority.

    “Yours is a commendable and recommendable model. On behalf of the leadership and entire members of the ruling APC in Ogun State, we wish you many more years in good health and in service to humanity.”

    Adeyemi, who represented Ifo/Ewekoro Federal Constituency between 2011 and 2015 at the National Assembly, said Osoba’s background in journalism contributed immensely to his penchant for progressive politics, which culminated in the pursuance of grassroots development while he governed Ogun.

  • Osoba at 80

    His memoir, launched a week to his 80th birthday on July 15, highlighted the stages where he had played creditably. Chief Olusegun Osoba’s autobiography was fittingly titled Battlelines – Adventures in Journalism and Politics.

    Osoba earned respect not only as a journalist, but also as a media manager. His story on the discovery of the corpse of then Prime Minister, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, “on the road side on Mile 27 on the Lagos-Abeokuta Road,” following the country’s first military coup on January 15, 1966, put him in the limelight. “People talk about it as if it is the only feat I achieved as a journalist, “ Osoba observed in an interview.  “I wrote many exclusive stories. For example, when the late Joseph Tarka ordered a Mercedes-Benz which became a controversial issue, I exclusively covered the issue. During the civil war, I had many exclusive stories. Even in my later years when I got to Sketch and Herald, I had many exclusive stories. For instance, the assassination of then Head of State, Gen. Murtala Muhammed, and the capture of Dimka (coup plotter), I did many exclusives on them. I have details of all that transpired.”

    He was not just a witness to history; he was also a reporter of history. Osoba continued: “When then Military Governor of old Kwara State, Col Ibrahim Taiwo, was assassinated, I was the one who went with the Secretary to the State Government, Obatoyin, to discover his corpse on the road to Offa. The case of Alhaji Shugaba, who was then Majority Leader of Borno State House of Assembly, who was taken physically and thrown across the border like a stone, was another landmark. I witnessed the impeachment of then Governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa. There are many others but there is much emphasis on the Tafawa Balewa case as if it was the only feat. However, it was the major beginning that threw me into the hall of fame.”

    He joined the Daily Times as a trainee reporter in 1964, and rose through the ranks to become the newspaper’s Editor in 1975. After a stint as General Manager of Nigerian Herald, Osoba returned to Daily Times as the managing director in 1984. His reportorial and managerial roles reflected the breadth of his services to journalism.

    He was equipped for a career in journalism. After earning a diploma in the subject at the University of Lagos, he studied for a year in the UK on the scholarship of the Commonwealth Press Union in 1967. He won the prestigious Neiman Fellowship for Journalism in 1974, the first Nigerian to do so, and did a postgraduate course at Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

    Osoba’s membership of the Nigerian Constituent Assembly in 1988 marked the beginning of his adventures in politics. It is a measure of his social and political skills that he was elected Governor of Ogun State.  Interestingly, he first became governor as a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), from January 1992 to November 1993, when the Sani Abacha military administration disrupted the democratic process.

    He then played a significant role as a pro-democracy activist in the battle to save Nigeria’s soul from military adventurers in politics. Osoba was again elected governor as a member of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), and held office between 1999 and 2003. He was a member of the National Conference 2014, which underlined his patriotism and passion for the country’s progress. His Nigerian national honour, the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON), is a tribute from an appreciative country.

    Osoba’s progressive credentials remain intact on the treacherous terrain of Nigerian politics. It is testimony to his positive political consistency that he is counted among the progressives.

  • Clark tackles Osoba for denigrating Confab Report

    Ijaw national leader and the convener of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, on Wednesday joined issues with former Ogun State Governor Olusegun Osoba for allegedly denigrating the agitation for the restructuring of Nigeria.

    Clark, in a statement circulated in Warri described attempts by Osoba to promote the El-Rufai Committee Report above the 2014 National Conference as uncharitable.

    He said suggesting the replacement of the Confab Report with a committee report was equivalent to sacrificing national interest on the altar of partisan politics.

    Clark, who opened his statement, titled: “Chief Segun Osoba at 80; and the question of Restructuring”, by congratulating Osoba for turning 80, before going on to reflect on his comment at public presentation of Osoba’s autobiography, recalled that the former Ogun governor was part of the process that produced the 2014 National Conference Report.

    He added that the call for restructuring, which he said was primarily targeted at giving true federalism proper attention and eventually allowed in Nigeria, has always been a topical issue in the country.

    According to him, as a senior citizen with unfettered access to President Muhammadu Buhari, he (Osoba) “is expected to lend his voice to achieving the adoption of the confab report by the government.

    “I read Chief Osoba’s comments, during the launch of his book, titled: ‘Battlelines: Adventures in Journalism and Politics’, to mark his 80th birthday, he was reported to have described ‘those shouting Restructuring should realize that the power rests with the National Assembly.

    “We have to rearrange our system. The El-Rufai report should be sent to the National Assembly. If anybody thinks Buhari can change anything by decree, it is not possible

    “Unfortunately, It is most uncharitable of Chief Osoba to refer to the agitators of the question of restructuring, in such a shabby manner. Chief Osoba should be reminded that, most of the people who have congregated under the Southern and Middle Belt Forum (SMBLF) were members of the 2014 National Conference of which he was a very active member.

    “The National Conference which comprised 492 Nigerians drawn from all walks of life made over 600 recommendations. The Conference is aware that, there are parts of the report that could only be achieved by means of executive decisions.

    Read Also: How NADECO was formed, by Osoba

    “There are aspects of the report that must necessarily pass through the National Assembly that will give rise to constitutional amendments or writing a new Constitution, altogether.

    “The National Confab, in anticipating this latter scenario, went a step further to provide a draft Constitution, reflecting the aims, aspirations, principles, spirit and letter of the  National Conference, which was submitted to Government.

    “Chief Osoba is aware that, true federalism, a byword of the subject of restructuring, has always been a part and parcel of our evolution process.

    “The Afenifere of the Southwest to which Chief Osoba belongs, and represented at the National Conference, do not believe that it is the so called El Rufai Committee that would deliver a restructured Nigeria, other than the 2014 Confab Report.

    “By his level and pedigree, it was not expected of Chief Osoba to now advise President Muhammad Buhari to send  the El-Rufai Report  to the National Assembly, reducing this all important subject of Restructuring to a mere political-orientated El-Rufai Committee report, which was hurriedly produced on the eve of the 2019 elections, to hoodwink unsuspecting Nigerians.

    “There is nothing in the El Rufai report which is not contained in the 2014 National conference. There was every opportunity for the government of PMB to present the El Rufai Report, culled and doctored from the 2014 Conference Report,  to National Assembly, before the 2019 election…”

  • Only National Assembly can restructure Nigeria, says Osoba

    To former Ogun State Governor Olusegun Osoba, only the National Assembly has the constitutional power to restructure the country.

    He made the remark in a chat with State House reporters after presenting a copy of his book: “Battlelines: Adventures in journalism and politics” to President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House, Abuja.

    According to him, he also reported the political situation of his state to the President.

    The new governor of the state, Dapo Abiodun, he said, has started governance on a very good note.

    According to him, the President has given an instruction that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to give Ogun State maximum support in agriculture.

    Asked if he advised the President on the issues of restructuring and devolution of powers, Osoba said: “I have said it and I am one of the founders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), I would not discuss in details because I have access, I am part of the presidency because the President is our president.

    “But I can tell you, all this noise about restructuring, we in the APC put devolution of power, true federalism in our manifesto and we’ve moved far from there to where a committee was set up, headed by the governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai.

    “That committee has submitted its report; that report has been presented to us in the caucus and the President was there, the president endorsed the outcome.

    “I want Nigerians to please, give us time. I hope and pray that at the right time, the government or the party would send that report to National Assembly for debate.

    “I would say with all authority that restructuring lies with National Assembly. The President is not a military president; he cannot change anything by decree. Sovereignty in Nigeria now is vested in the National Assembly.

    “Those agitating for sovereign national conference must go through the National Assembly and unless the National Assembly surrenders part of its powers by an Act, there can never be sovereign national conference.

    Read Also: Osoba @ 80: A protege remembers

    “Secondly, agitation for referendum; there must be an act of the National Assembly to create that referendum. It’s not the president that would by fiat or by executive order for referendum.

    “It must go through the National Assembly and that is why I plead with our elders: Pa Edwin Clark, Pa Adebanjo, Prof Banji Akintoye, all across Nigeria, they met with the Eight Senate and they heard what that National Assembly has done in terms of the review of the constitution.

    “They should come back and tell us. We cannot move forward until we recognise the importance and the powers vested in the National Assembly. And for restructuring, let us go through the legal route.”

    Asked to clarify whether the chieftains of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), who agreed to serve in military administration of the late Gen. Sani Abacha got the nod of the winner of the June 12 presidential election, the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola, the former Ogun governor said the late politician gave his nod.

    Osoba said: “There have been a lot of blackmail and denigration of people. For example, people like Jakande, Onagoruwa, late Alex Ibru, they said that they went and collaborated with Abacha which is not true.

    “Solomon Lar, Abubakar Rimi and all others were all in a meeting in MKO Bashorun Abiola’s house on a Sunday after the late Gen. Abacha seized power on November 17, 1993 and kicked us out.

    “The following Sunday, we met in Bashorun MKO Abiola’s house and we debated with chieftains of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) and we that produced him as president and made June 12 possible agreed that those that may be invited to come and serve the country, should serve but remain loyal to the mandate and use their influence to perhaps persuade the military to return the mandate to Abiola. Iyorchia Ayu was one of them, he was former Senate President.

    “I can call many of them who were at the meeting in which MKO Abiola presided. So, I have to clear this doubt that Abiola had knowledge and gave approval to serve in Abacha’s government.”