Posted by SINA BABASOLA, Ibadan on
MORUFAT and Ganiyat, two of the daughters of the slain Alhaji Lateef Olaniyan a.k.a Lati Osogbo, were billed to meet their father on Sunday, July 17, for money- related issues.
*Wives, daughters' agony: He was returning home to break his fast when assassins got him
MORUFAT and Ganiyat, two of the daughters of the slain Alhaji Lateef Olaniyan a.k.a Lati Osogbo, were billed to meet their father on Sunday, July 17, for money- related issues. Morufat, an HND II accountancy student of The Polytechnic, Ibadan, spoke to his father the previous day, informing him that the institution will soon open for another academic session and that she needed a lot of money being on the last lap of her programme. The late Lati Osogbo asked his daughter to come to the house on Sunday morning for the money. Ganiyat, in her mid 20s, has just finished training in hairdressing business. She went to their Sango residence also that Saturday morning and met their father on his way out. She discussed the issue of establishing her own hairdressing shop and her father also gave her Sunday appointment for the money. However, as fate would have it, the two ladies were informed on the night of that Saturday that their father had an accident and had been taken to hospital for treatment.
The daughters were informed of the incident around 11.30 p.m. and so they deferred their visit till Sunday morning. Early Sunday morning, the duo arrived the eight-room apartment of the Olaniyans in Sango area of Ibadan. The duo, who were initially thinking of going to the hospital to see their injured father, only met the lifeless body of their father wrapped in white shroud in the living room of the house. They could not believe their eyes. For several seconds, they could not believe their father, who spoke to them the previous day, was no more courtesy of gunshot wounds inflicted on him by hired assassins. It was the biggest tragedy of their lives. But beyond that, the ambitions they had discussed with their father the previous day in the hope that he would help in achieving them, had vanished.
This sad scenario depicted the feelings and shock that pervaded the house of Lati Osogbo, an associate of Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, murdered around 10 p.m. Saturday, July 16 at Sango rail crossing Ibadan by yet to be identified gunmen. At the Elewure residence of the Osogbo-born politician, Bola, the youngest wife of the deceased, who saw him last in the morning of the day of the ugly incident told Sunday Vanguard; "Alhaji left this house around 10 a.m. on Saturday and he told me that he was going to Molete residence of Baba Adedibu. You know, it is common knowledge that my husband is the right hand man of Baba Adedibu and he goes there everyday. So there was no premonition at all that he would not return to this house alive.
"On the day, he did not eat before he left the house, he told me that he was fasting and he even asked one of us (wives) to prepare a delicious soup for him. It is unfortunate and sad that the soup he requested for, he could not live to taste it. He was yet to break the fast when the armed men shot him dead around 10 p.m.
"Nobody in this house had any inkling that something harmful had befallen us until around 10.30 p. m when somebody rushed to this place and said Alhaji Lati had an accident in Sango and that he had been rushed to Cornerstone Hospital very close to our house.
"What gave the assailants boldness to attack my husband at Sango is the fact that there was heavy rain that night and there was no light, so everybody in the area retired home very early, every where was dark if not, nobody could have shot Alhaji in this area. He was very popular among the elders and the youths. He coordinated political activities in the whole neighborhood. When we got to the scene of the purported accident, we saw that the engine of Alhaji's car was still running with the full lights on and we discovered that the right front seat of the car was soaked in blood and we quickly rushed down to Cornerstone Hospital where the doctors said that Alhaji Lati was brought there dead.
"We brought the body to this house, it was while we were bathing the body that we discovered that he had a deep cut on the left side of his head and the police boss came and confirmed to us that this is not an accident but that he had been shot".
They took his corpse to Adeoyo Hospital where they recovered some bullets from the head. The wife who said she got married to the late Lati Osogbo, 18 years ago, debunked the insinuation that the deceased was a land speculator and dealer, saying "we have stayed for eighteen years as husband and wife, there was no time anybody came here in respect of land issue. There is no way he would be dealing in land matters that I will not know, he had no secret at all. His death is politically motivated and I believe it has to do with the congress being planned by the party, he is a full time politician.
"He had no other business apart from politics and all these years, he had not gained anything politically. We are pained because Alhaji Lati was the breadwinner for all of us, the children are still young, I don't know how we are going to cope without him but Allah is there. The only appeal I want to make is that associates and friends should help us in the education of the children he left behind", Mrs. Olaniyan said. The eldest wife of the slain politician also made this appeal despite the fact that she could not control her emotion.
Alhaji Lasisi Olaniyan, aged 70, the eldest brother of the deceased, said that he met his brother 12 days before he was shot dead and that he got the assurance that the deceased would soon begin to reap the benefits of his 30 years in active politics.
Army of children
While coroborating Bola's assertion that the late Lati Osogbo was not a land dealer, Alhaji Lasisi Olaniyan said, "Lati had no land or house. This house, I built it with my sweat, he had no house anywhere, I brought him to Ibadan and I gave him this house. I have asked all the wives whether they know anywhere Lati kept his properties. He lived his life on daily basis, if he gets any money now, he would spend and expect another money to come. I don't know how we are going to take care of the army of children he left behind now, all of them are still in school, his friends should help in the education of his children, that is the only appeal we are making".
While ruling out revenge from the family side, Lasisi said: "We are Moslems, I am an Alhaji, Lati was also an Alhaji, we both went to Mecca, we leave everything to God. All of us too will one day join Lati".
Alhaji Lasisi Olaniyan, while berating the way the investigation of the matter is being handled by the police, said,"No police personnel has come here and I don't believe the police can track down the killers, the moment the armed men were not arrested at the spot of the incident, there is nowhere they can get them. The only fear I have now is that the police will start to arrest innocent people. I sincerely believe Lati died at the appointed time.
"Whether his death has political undertone or not, it is God's time and we leave everything to God. He will judge everybody according to his or her deeds."
The first born of Lati Osogbo, Taofeek, told Sunday Vanguard that he saw his late father last during his wedding held in Lokoja in March. "I stay in Abuja and I only come to Ibadan once or twice a year, so I don't know whether my father was killed by political opponents. The only thing I know for sure is that he was a popular politician in Ibadan. I knew that something strange had happened when they called me in Abuja that Alhaji was sick. This is against his practice. Alhaji would not tell me when he was ill, it was when he got over the sickness that he would inform me and he hardly fell sick. God will take control of everything," Taofeek said.
But the political aide of the slain Lati Osogbo, Mr. Abiodun Agboluaje, confirmed that two Fridays ago, Baba Adedibu gave the deceased a Toyota Cresida for his continued loyalty and dedication to the cause of Molete school of politics, adding that the Toyota Cresida was with a mechanic at Samonda area of Ibadan undergoing minor repairs. Said he: "We planned to use the car for grassroots mobilization for the forthcoming PDP wards, councils and state congresses slated for October but now, they did not allow Alhaji to use the car for even one day".
According to him, Lati had told some of his boys that some people in high places had pencilled down four of Adedibu's people for attack but dismissed the threat on the grounds that God was in control and that no bad thing could happen to him. Agboluaje, who also denied the involvement of his political mentor in any land deal, said: "Please whoever said that should come out with the facts to prove this allegation. There is nothing like that. I have been with him for the past three years now."
Adedibu and Ladoja camps
He went further to say there was no rift between the deceased and Adedibu, pointing out, "Alhaji Lati always told us that he could never fight Alhaji Adedibu again in his political life. Alhaji Lati told us that he left Adedibu's camp briefly for two years but he suffered for it for four years. Alhaji Lati also informed us that while he was in the Ladoja camp, he collected N15,000 only from Senator Ladoja and he always repeated this to our hearing that he owed Ladoja only N15,000."
Agboluaje also raised some posers, which he wants the police to help the family unravel. According to him, the driver's seat of the car in which the deceased was killed was wound down and showed that there was a lot of blood on the other front seat of the car. The car is still with the police. "Those who killed Alhaji Lati must have succeeded in forcing their way into the car and shot him in the left side of the head from the back seat. The police should help us look at this angle very well, "the aide said.
The political godfather of the deceased, Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, however, insisted that the late Lati Osogbo was murdered by political opponents with the aid of the police. The state government, reacting to the alleged complicity of the police in the assassination of the politician, asked the acting Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero, to take over the investigation in view of the sensitive nature of the matter. The state's Information Commissioner, Barrister Oyinloye, however, said that the investigation of the acting Inspector- General of Police was not an indictment of the police in Oyo State.
The war of words between Adedibu Camp and Ladoja camp over who is responsible for the killing, continued penultimate weekend with each of them accusing the other of complicity in the gruesome murder of the 64-year-old politician.