Why my father was killed – Bola Ige’s son, Muyiwa

Wale Oyewale, Ibadan

Muyiwa Ige, a former Commissioner for Lands and Physical Planning in Osun State, has said his father was killed as a result of envy.

Chief Bola Ige, SAN, and former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, was murdered by unknown assailants at his Bodija, Ibadan home on December 23, 2001.

Ige, who was the Deputy National leader of Afenifere, a pan Yoruba socio- cultural organisation, was assassinated at age 71.

Muyiwa, who spoke in Ibadan during the 90th posthumous birth anniversary of his father, an astute politician and legal luminary, at St. Anne’s Church, Molete, Ibadan on Sunday, said his father’s assailants shall “continually be hunted by their evil deeds”.

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According to him, his late father bequeathed legacies of selfless service, good leadership, integrity, honesty, and commitment to the plight of common men to his children and loyalists.

Muyiwa recalled that his father, at age 29, was on the global platform with the late Martin Luther King Jnr. in Athens, Ohio in 1959, moving the motion for the blacks to be able to exercise their voting right in America.

He said, “My father really loved young people. He also believed in the emancipation of the common man and elevating young people. A lot of his peers didn’t like him for that because they could not understand the young people.

“But, that was the essence of Bola Ige, and it was part of the envy that ate into the souls of some of those who didn’t like him. Nonetheless, that was their problem. Bola Ige came to this world, did his bit, and his legacy lives on.”

Drawing a comparison between the current time and the past, he lamented over “the gradual slide of good governance” in the country.

He noted that against the current reality, politics at the pre-independence and post-independence period was based on Ideologies.

“Now, you can’t even differentiate between A and B. There is cross-carpeting every day. Consistency is not there.

“We need to go back and study what they did well in their days and ensure that there is a vibrant mentoring programme, especially for our youths. There are great leaders out there that we can still point to that can support young people,” he stated.