Falana Offer Free Defence as Soyinka Moves to Go To Court Over OmisoreNobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka on Thursday, said he is ready to go to court against impeached Deputy Governor of Osun and current National Secretary of the All Progressive Congress, Senator Iyiola Omisore.
This was just as human rights lawyer, Femi Falana vowed to defend the playwright free of charge as he believes he is taking on a “just public cause.”
Speaking in Lagos, Soyinka said the APC erred badly in making Omisore emerge as its national scribe.
He said there is nothing wrong in rewarding a man for whatever political job he had done, adding that Omisore could be rewarded with an ambassadorial position but not with the national secretary of a ruling party.
“He can be rewarded perhaps as an Ambassador to Ukraine or something like that,” Soyinka said.
Speaking at a media interaction in Lagos titled, “Forget the past, forfeit the future: A nation seceding from humanity,” Soyinka said those who elected Omisore rubbed the murder of the late Chief Bola Ige on the faces of every right-thinking persons.
He said, “We are talking of the party of those in charge of the governance and justice of this country. The leadership of APC and I am not talking of Buhari alone, do you have to unleash scorpions on our memory? It is not Soyinka who provided this. It’s those who were so insensitive, who rubbed that murder in our faces. I will be delighted to go to court so that we can go into details. I ask the APC leadership to have a rethink because the issue will not go away.”
Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who said the killers of Ige must be found, noted that Soyinka had reminded the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), of his pledge to open an enquiry into the country’s spate of political murders.
Soyinka had challenged the APC last week over the emergence of Omisore saying it killed all hopes of any reasonable expectation from the promised reopening of the case file on the assassination of the late Chief Bola Ige.
Omisore was one of those tried over the killing of the former Minister of Justice. He had earlier been accused of orchestrating the removal of the cap of the minister at the palace of the Ooni of Ife a week before his killing.
After the assault on Ige at the Palace, Omisore had granted an interview to a tabloid where he said the removal of Ige’s cap was just a tip of the iceberg.
Omisore, after court appearances, was later acquitted. He won an election to the Senate and later became the Chairman Senate Committee on Appropriation.