Posted by By TOPE ADEBOBOYE on
Action Congress (AC) governorship candidate in Osun State during last year's election, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, has dismissed the attempt to link him and his supporters with the June 14, 2007 bomb blast in the state as a desperate effort to frustrate his on-going case against Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the state election tribunal.
Action Congress (AC) governorship candidate in Osun State during last year's election, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, has dismissed the attempt to link him and his supporters with the June 14, 2007 bomb blast in the state as a desperate effort to frustrate his on-going case against Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the state election tribunal.
The former governor said it was absurd that the injured blast suspect who reportedly confessed that he was given the bombing assignment by some individuals has been unable to mention the names of the alleged masterminds of the incident, as well as venues and dates of their purported meetings.
While calling on the police and the state officials to make available the diary said to have been discovered at the scene of the incident, Aregbesola said it was curious that such a document could have survived a blast that dismembered a human being and thoroughly destroyed a vehicle and its contents.
'The scene was searched immediately by a team of detectives, led by an assistant commissioner of police, who listed everything that was found within the area. At that time, there was no mention of a diary. Yet how that mysterious diary they now claim is the basis of their new hunt for opposition leaders and those perceived to be enemies of their administration escaped the eagle eyes of the team of detectives is simply incredible," he said.
The former commissioner for Works in Lagos State also queried why the authorities have been keeping sealed lips on the telephone numbers said to have been collected from the scene of the blast. According to him, information gathered from the mobile telephone numbers could have been useful in locating all the people involved in the blast.
'The GSM technology is capable of giving you the precise geographical position of whoever is making a call, as well as whoever is receiving the call," he stated. 'With the telephone numbers, you can confirm or reject all the allegations. You can equally know those who engaged these people in talk before and after the incident. So let the police tell us how much investigation they have conducted."
He described as normal, the return of the controversial constituency project funds by the AC lawmakers in Osun State, saying the payment of such funds into private salary accounts had betrayed the real intention of the state government.
Said he: 'Our lawmakers had to reject the money because they must not in any way mortgage the trust reposed in them through the influence of filthy lucre. If you go into the lodgement of the money, the money was paid into the lawmakers' salary accounts. And when the money was lodged, it was not described as constituency project funds.
That was an afterthought. Our party was conscious of the implication of such dubious lodgement, and that was why it instructed its members to reject the money."
The government, he noted, had a responsibility to deliver services to the people in terms of security, provision of good healthcare, water, light, roads and the like.
While dismissing accusations that he was deliberately delaying proceedings at the Osun State election tribunal, Aregbesola argued that, being the petitioner, it was within his right to adopt whatever measures deemed appropriate by his counsels in the prosecution of the case.