Osun poll: APC punished for sacrilege committed against Bola Ige — Soyinka

Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has said that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was punished at the recent Osun State gubernatorial poll for committing a “sacrilege” against a slain former Minister of Justice, Bola Ige, and those who represent his ideals.

Professor Soyinka disclosed this on Channels Television’s NewsNight on Monday.

Recall that Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defeated the incumbent Osun State governor, Gboyega Oyetola, who ran on the platform of the APC in the July 16 governorship election.

Adeleke polled 403,371 votes, 28,344 more than his closest rival, Oyetola who polled 375,027 votes.

He said: “When the results began to come in, I had just returned (from overseas). It was like a welcome present because I saw that party (APC) being punished for that act of sacrilege.”

The octogenarian stated that the APC committed sacrilege against Ige by elevating one of those indicted in the murder of the former justice minister as a national executive of the ruling party.

He, however, did not mention the name of the said suspect.

In his words: “The two parties (APC and PDP) have become very confusing to start with. Members have moved across so much…there has been so much inter-marriage and the bloodline has diluted in many aspects, being polluted in many aspects. It even got to a stage where a prominent member of the APC actually articulated the sentiment of: ‘Oh, come and join us and your sins will be forgiven’.

“It didn’t surprise me too much that somebody who has been so heavily implicated in the death of a prominent member of that party, Bola Ige, he is a founding member, that his memories should be so thrashed by consulting one of the prominent figures who featured in the events – forget whether he was innocent of the actual crime or not – was heavily implicated in the humiliation of that individual, that founding member of that party who was also the minister of justice of this nation.

“To actually catapult one of those crime suspects and proven contributors…and to find that that person has been given a position in that party (APC), in governance, and after the President (Muhammadu Buhari) had actually inaugurated a re-examination of that episode amongst other crimes, that is quite a bit of shock. And I mentioned at a time, that is a bit of sacrilege. And remember, this Osun is Bola Ige’s state.”