Chapter One
Ziggy[1] from within
Surviving an assassination plot is not new. It depends on fate, the calibre of the person concerned and sometimes excellent work by law enforcement agencies in detecting the plot on time. Because those who kill others for a fee are not ghosts, they are often bound to make mistakes either before or after the criminal act. In certain instances, there have been others who survive such acts with injuries. But survive they did, to live another day. Politicians, journalists, judges and ordinary political activists have often been targets of assassins sent by persons with an axe to grind or secrets to keep. The other category, which most of those targeted could hardly escape from, is that directed at an insider within an organisation. Even if the person survives, there are two major things to battle with: security and repairs to damage in his credibility.
Sponsors of assassinations could be likened to the King of Darkness, who abhors any kind of light around his/her person. Secrecy and cover ups using every available means at their disposal forms the deep cover of darkness around them. Whoever, directly or indirectly tries to shine some light through information into their activities will most likely be put down in the most ruthless of manners. Physical elimination of the information bearer remains the first option here. But where this has become impossible, everything will be done to damage the credibility of the person with the ability to open up on the King of Darkness hiding among minions ready to do their Master’s bidding at the snap of two fingers. The scenario painted has not been different for me since that night of Saturday, 10 January 2009 when I was almost killed by six gunmen in Ilishan Remo, Ogun State, Nigeria.
Fate played a very crucial role in my being alive after the attack. Till date, the circumstances surrounding the attack and my survival are issues, which constitute serious spiritual lessons for me. They shattered some previously held spiritual assumptions, while strengthening others that shaped my growing up years. But in more ways than one, given the events preceding that night and the attack itself, till date I am still trying to find answers to critical issues raised in my adopted Christian faith unlike the Islam I was born into, which does not need any explanation. It is the same thing with my native Yoruba beliefs, which clashed with Christianity to a point of no return that night. Although some light are being shed through some Christian friends into this issues that I have dubbed, an intersection of faiths, it might take a while before it finally sinks in given the disdain that one had treated traditional beliefs with in the past.
But barely 48 hours after the attempt to assassinate me, some faceless agents of the Governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, began a campaign of calumny to water down the expected negative public opinion against the attack. Text messages to discredit me began circulating on Monday, 12 January 2009 claiming among others that: “There was no attack on Wale Adedayo. He planned what he claimed happened with members of the OPC to stop the governor from sacking him.” I was not surprised. It was something I had expected, given my knowledge of the man I had worked with so closely in the last four years. But my thoughts were concentrated on safety first, ahead of any other thing as only the living can give a proper account of what happened later, no matter how long.
The negative texts were reinforced with word of mouth propaganda especially among persons within the OGD system in Ogun Central and Ogun East Senatorial Districts. But it was more prevalent in Abeokuta. The claims insisted on the ‘fact’ that the attack designed to kill me was staged-managed to gain public sympathy. This was after spirited efforts to bury what happened had failed woefully as the story was published by most newspapers on Monday, a little over 30 hours after the attack. But the ziggy could not be sustained with most people refusing to buy the theory. In an ironic twist of fate, some policemen and State Security Service (SSS) officials serving in the government sent solidarity messages and counselled that I leave town immediately. Of course, some loyal party cadres were shocked and wanted revenge. And contrary to advice from my SSS and police friends, I travelled round again to calm a number of the boys down. They should not take on one another, I counselled, as not everyone has the nerve or principle to reject certain instructions.
With the reality dawning on the set of amateur ziggy operatives being used that the attack could not be covered up, towards the evening of the same day, they invented another theory: It was an armed robbery attack, which the police were already investigating. This was what they held on to for a long time with the Commissioner for Information & Orientation, Mr. Kayode Samuel, and Security Adviser to the Governor, Alhaji Lamidi Odulawa, addressing a press conference to confirm it a few days later. But curiously enough, and as expected in similar cases, the police was not part of the press conference. The Vice Chancellor of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Prof. Odutola Osilesi, his driver and a security aide of the VC were at the press conference, where they told the invited journalists that it was the official car snatched from them the robbers used to attack me. According to them, this explains the car with Ogun State Government licensed plate number that I saw.
The VC’s driver said he was made to lie face down in the car as the robbers drove away with it. This was a measure to ensure the car did not stop due to security measures which could have been installed in it. The driver confirmed the exchange of gunfire between the robbers and I. He also confirmed that the robbers lamented the death of one of them in the gunfire exchange. But I will always dispute this claim because there is no doubt that the other two will die of their injuries, if they did not do so immediately given the spot of the bullets on their bodies. According to the driver, the ‘armed robbers’ went back to the scene after returning from chasing me to pick up their dead colleague. The man gave a graphic account of what he believed was happening until he was dropped off at a point by the robbers who did not kill him. For him, it was God’s grace and mercy that saved him as he later wandered around until he could locate his boss. With his statement, the OGD Administration believed it had finally collapsed arguments that it was an assassination attempt.
Of course, the VC and his men could be excused. They were unaware that one of the strategies of a ‘perfect assassination’ on the road was to feign armed robbery attack. The first or second vehicle ahead of a target one is attacked before descending on the victim of an assassination. But none of those in the first wave of attacks would be killed, except in extra-ordinary circumstances. In attacking the first set of victims who would not be killed, instructions and threats from the ‘armed robbers’ should happen. This will not be so for the main target, who will be killed with his/her vehicle snatched to make the robbery theory believable. Nonetheless, the vehicle will be found later either within Nigeria or in the neighbouring Benin Republic because there was no need for it in the first place. It was a strategy designed to take out two members of the Ogun State House of Assembly in 2008, but which failed, apparently, due to a superior spiritual strength by one the proposed victims, Hon. Wale Alausa (Ijebu Ode State Constituency). Dr. Tokunbo Oshin (Ijebu Igbo State Constituency) would have joined Alausa had the plot against the legislator from Ijebu Ode succeeded. Their sins: membership of the Group of 15 legislators opposed to the strong arm tactics of the governor.
When the Samuel-organised press conference did not stop the whisperings about the attack, especially the fact that it was organised from within, another ziggy spinning began. Shortly after my resignation, informal information dissemination from within the OGD system to the media and other opinion moulders was a reversal to the first ziggy that I stage-managed the attack. They claimed I shot at my windscreen from the inside of the car, and that I was never attacked. Funny enough, not one of those being fed this theory asked why bullets from a Pump Action Rifle that I held made one entry each into the windscreen and my car’s bonnet. Being pellets, a bullet from a PAR scatters, creating little holes over a wide area when the target is close. But the bullet marks on my vehicle was a single entry to the windscreen and another one on the bonnet of the car.
Financial and material inducements to those invited to hear their own side of the story became the order of the day with a number of individuals and organisations falling over themselves to get a share of the Abeokuta largesse. Choice cars were combined with pecuniary benefits to make the OGD system’s stories believable. It was another Gen. Sani Abacha circus all over again. I was labelled a blackmailer, with claims that it was a failed attempt to get money from the governor which made me release the information that I was attacked. More on this later. Hitherto trusted friends joined the largesse train with some of them doing volunteer ziggy jobs in Lagos and elsewhere to run me down. The belief that one had made so much money while there made a lot of converts for OGD. It was also confirmed that I should have been replaced as the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor for inefficiency and embezzlement of funds since late 2008. The ziggy promoters claimed it was a fear of being replaced, which necessitated my allegations of being attacked. More, also, on this later.
Not done with that, an Ogun State executive meeting of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) Gani Adams faction was called in Abeokuta where it was ‘revealed’ to the militant group’s officials that I have been sitting on N76.8m meant as monthly disbursement to its cadres in the state since January 2005 at a rate of N1.6m per month. Of course, there was no truth in this. It was only the leader of the group, Gani Adams, that the governor gave instructions for a monthly allowance of one million naira (N1m) for. The funds come from the Commissioner for Special Duties, Chief Kola Sorinola, who had been briefed by the governor to that effect. But I was the conduit for transferring the money. It is possible the state OPC officials complained about nothing getting to them before this ziggy of ‘chopping’ their money was released at the meeting. But instead of the intended effect of getting OPC members in Ogun State to go after me, the discussions there were dutifully relayed by a number of them who knew about my selfless contributions to the organisation despite the betrayal by its top echelon.
The national head of the herbalists of the same OPC, Asegongo, who is based in Abeokuta and has been involved in a lot of spiritual assistance to the governor, was also told that the governor sent five million naira (N5m) to him through me. Unlike the executive members who took the information given to them with a pinch of salt, the man believed the story. I had cause to call Asegongo following his father’s death shortly after the lies fed to him that whatever was intended for me spiritually will always go back to the senders. They were naïve to believe that any herbalist for that matter was my strength. I knew one was in Egypt and among very strong Egyptians. But given my background, they were never my strength. Doing what was necessary on errand for the political survival of an unappreciative boss was different from forgetting my roots. As with the Ogun State OPC executive members, the reason for making the false claim about the money was to induce the herbalist against me. He was induced, no doubt. But God has continued to protect me from every spiritual attack from that quarter till date.
It was the same ziggy with a number of senior journalists, especially Editors, who naively believed the packaged lies against me – all in a vain attempt to discredit my person and whatever story one might release later. But the most audacious of the ziggy was the use of the Publisher of Conscience International magazine, Chief Abiola Ogundokun, to discredit me. The man enjoyed patronage for his magazine from the OGD Administration before my entry into the system. But the patronage apparently became an under the table deal after my appointment. Ogundokun was to be appreciated by OGD later after his many exchanges with me on the social networking site, Facebook, where he uses a fake name to attack my person. I understand some senior officials of government represented the government at a chieftaincy ceremony by Ogundokun in his hometown, Iwo, Osun State in 2009. But a detailed account of my encounter with Ogundokun and similar responses to his lies against me are contained in a forthcoming book.
Leaving the shores of Nigeria for Cardiff, United Kingdom in September 2009 was a mixture of relief and sadness for my family and I. But my wife and I felt it was time to actualise a long held dream of publishing a magazine, from the UK and also activate a security measure to safeguard one’s life. Given our dire financial straits, we had to sell our only house in Lagos at a very ridiculous amount to do what we had to do. We also sold two of our cars. But interestingly enough, efforts to get reporters for the magazine, Uhuru, in the UK was almost frustrated by OGD’s admirers, who had circulated a malicious rumour that my trip to the UK and the magazine were sponsored by the governor. A number of people kept away from me after this episode in classical propaganda. It was only in the night of our first editorial meeting in a restaurant in Brixton did the opportunity of presenting my case – first hand- come for me. Before then, I was labelled an ingrate who took money from OGD and trying to paint the same man black.
Even before then, almost everyone was keeping away from us before my trip to the UK. Some out of fear of being labelled our friend, thus becoming targets of ‘armed robbers’, while others belong to a school of thought with the belief that one did not share ‘stolen’ government funds with them. The last category was the Abeokuta converts who were the evangelists of the propaganda being fed a gullible system about me. Nonetheless, there remains an individual using a fake name, Lagbaja Ola, on an internet forum, Naijapolitics, where he made claims that I killed a lady and buried her in my Ijebu Ife home for rituals. This was well circulated by the OGD system as another example of how discredited I was. But till date, and despite repeated demands to substantiate his allegations, the faceless writer has not done so. Initially, I was made to believe the Commissioner for Youths & Sports, Mr. Bukola Olopade, was responsible. It later proved incorrect. Indications suggest the person is one of the Correspondents of a national newspaper in Abeokuta, who enjoyed generous patronage from me during my stay in the Ogun State capital.
And recently, despite claims of embezzlement against me, fresh efforts are being made to twist facts of loans I took from some financial institutions. According to the newly appointed Commissioner for Information & Orientation, Mr. Sina Kawonise, the debts meant nobody should believe anything from me. But he did not explain the reason for his infantile argument, except to claim that most of the things OGD is being accused of were orchestrated by me.
[1] In the OGD Administration, ziggy simply means the political equivalent of 419, i.e deception to achieve a political end.
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