Oyo NURTW Crisis: 10 Arraigned

Trouble started when the National Industrial Court (NIC) reinstated Alhaji Lateef Akinsola a.k.a. Tokyo as the chairman of the union and sacked of Alhaji Lateef Salako a.k.a. Eleweomo.

The arraigned members are: Fisayo Ogundepo 35, Adekunle Azeez 34, Oluwole Omotosho 26, Saheed Adebayo 32, Amidu Ogundipe 28, Muhammed Wahab 26, Muhammed Amusa 34, Morufu Muraina 30, Oladapo Taiwo 42 and Latifu Ganiyu 24.

According to the court record, the suspects arrested at Sango Garage in Ibadan were charged  with conspiring and conducting themselves in a manner likely to cause breach of peace, being in possession of cutlasses and criminal charms.

The offences committed were contrary to sections 517, 249 (D) and 213 of the criminal code cap 38 vol. 11 law of Oyo State 2000.

After the suspects pleaded not guilty to all the offences, the presiding Chief Magistrate, Mrs. F. A. Badru granted all of them bail in the sum of N100,000 each with one surety each who has landed property in Ibadan.

The magistrate adjourned the hearing of the suit till September 6, 2010.

However, Tokyo has alleged that he has discovered a plot by Eleweomo and top politicians to plan fake the kidnapping of his own wife to create a false impression that Tokyo carried out such a nefarious act.

According to him, “Eleweomo and his second in command, Alhaji Mukaila Lamidi a.k.a. Auxiliary have already concluded arrangements to ferry Eleweomo’s wife to a location in Ogbomoso under the cover of the night, any moment from now, and thereafter create the impression that the woman had been kidnapped, thus causing fresh commotion in the state. I call on the security agencies not to take the allegation with levity to save innocent members of the public from undue mental agony.”

As regards the policeman who shot dead 25-year-old Olasunkanmi, one of the supporters of Tokyo, a few metres away from the Olomi state secretariat of the Oyo NURTW, the Oyo State Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Adisa Baba Bolanta has assured that he would be charged to court if the ongoing investigation about the killing implicated him.

Bolanta disclosed this in Ibadan when addressing newsmen, adding that the policeman was still in detention.

He called on the two factions of NURTW to maintain peace pending when the appropriate quarters would resolve their differences.

While Eleweomo has exonerated himself from the killing of Olasunkanmi, a socio-political organization, “The Concerned Progressives of Oyo State” has email ed a Save-Our-Soul (S.O.S.) to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ogbonna Onovo urging them to wade into the NURTW crisis in Oyo State and find a lasting solution to it.

The Coordinator of the organisation, Comrade Rotimi Alen, urged President Jonathan and IGP Onovo to prevail on the authorities in Oyo State to allow the rule of law, social justice and equity to reign supreme, saying there lies the only panacea for an enduring peace in the land.

Alen stated that continued crisis in the union could lead the state to unnecessary anarchy that everyone should guard against.

He noted that the organisation had uncovered diabolical plans in high places in the state to incriminate Tokyo and his group at all costs to pave the way for the schemed return into the Oyo NURTW leadership of Eleweomo and Auxiliary, through the backdoor, irrespective of the recent Judgment of the National Industrial Court.

—Gbenro Adesina/Ibadan