Olusegun Osoba, former governor of Ogun state has lauded Rilwan Akiolu, the Oba of Lagos for his steadfastness and humanness even at the detriment of his Police job when he secretly stood against Military cruel treatment that was meted out to one of Nigeria’s Third Republic governors.
BusinessDay reports that Osoba, a governor on the platform of defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Ogun state was one of the seventeen members of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) that were arrested and detained by the Military Regime of late General Sanni Abacha in 1994.
Revealing the roles of Oba of Lagos, who was then a Police Commissioner in Lagos state at the 75th birthday of Alani Bankole, father of former Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, in Abeokuta on Saturday, Osoba said that Akiolu was the only person that was left with him after he had been detained.
The former Managing Director of defunct Daily Times Publications, who gave a keynote address at the 75th birthday of Senior Bankole in the presence of Oba of Lagos, Yakubu Dogara and Lasun Yusuf, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of Representatives; Governor Ibikunle Amosun, among other dignitaries, urged Nigerians to emulate such an act.
While speaking with nostalgia and reminiscence of cruelty he suffered in the hands of Military boys in 1994, the ex- governor explained that he was cruelly whisked away from the Government House in Abeokuta on that fateful day and later detained at Kam Salem Police Headquarters sited on Moloney Street at Obalende in Lagos.
He said with emotions that, “This was during the Military Regime of General Sanni Abacha, I was taken from the Government House in Abeokuta to Kam Salem House in Lagos as a NADECO Governor and detained at a place where I was sleeping on a bench in a room where there were giant rats moving round.
But, Olowo Eko (Oba of Lagos) risked his job and gave me the key to his Office to sleep in his Office, and if possible use his Office. I am going to mention that in my book to be published later this year.”
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