CHAPTER 15
The News House
At 6am, they came out of the Griot’s hole disguised as safety officials helping to evacuate the wounded from the scene of the explosion. Uncle Jimi being a Red Cross ambassador had Red Cross uniforms in his office and had the men put them on. They had been able to transport the two wounded men to the University health centre by avoiding the scene of the explosion. Uncle Jimi stayed with the doctor and his friend. While Major Badoo went on with his men to the BCOS. He had stopped briefly to warn the men that they were no longer working for Chief Gbolabo except they wish to be handed over to the police. Still putting on the Red Cross vests, the three men entered their vehicle and drove out of the university premises without interference by the police officers who knew that humanitarian laws required that safety personnel be granted safe access in a crisis situation but were negligent enough not to demand some form of identification.
At BCOS, the early morning breakfast show had flashed images from the explosions at the University of Ibadan and released pictures of a dead man dragged from a river in Epe in Lagos State by a fisherman who claimed he saw men dumping the body into the river from the top of a bridge. He had paddled his canoe towards the man and tried to save him since he was convulsing terribly and almost drowned but it was too late. He had carried the body to the nearest shore and called the villagers who had alerted news men. The remains resembled that of an Ondo chief who had reportedly been kidnapped the previous night. The news flash had stated that the exploded vehicle in UI was identified to have been a rented vehicle used by a medical doctor of the University in the last couple of days.
Thirty minutes later, they had released footage of a meeting between the said medical doctor and presidential aspirant, Chief Gbolabo. Alhaji Kosoko had woken up from his sleep at 7:30 am to hear the newsmen had linked the bomb explosion to two presidential aspirants, Chief Gbolabo, who had a meeting with the owner of the exploded vehicle some days back. There were released pictures of the meeting and security operatives had arrested a former corporal of the defunct Nigerian army now working as aide of Alhaji Kosoko close to the scene of the explosion. He had been found running away from the scene along with students in the pandemonium that ensued when some of the students sighted a gun strapped to his waist and before he could make a getaway, the students had descended on him heavily and disarmed him. Two other unidentified men supposed to be with him had escaped unhurt, one of them carrying a small gun strapped to his waist. Security operatives believed they were still within the University premises, hedged in by the presence of the police. The police had also claimed to receive a video sent by an anonymous person showing footage of the new presidential aspirant ordering the kidnap of the Ondo chief.
Alhaji Kosoko hurriedly drove to the TV station which was just fifteen minutes from his hotel in blind fury, demanding to know which of his detractors decided to use the media house to discredit him.
You TV people should know better, what people are capable of doing in this world of video-editing he shouted at the manager.
Sir, it’s not an edited video, we checked it on our computers when the police granted our press-men access to a copy of the video.
Are you saying there are copies of it?
Who brought it?
We don’t know sir, it was anonymous, he said, his head turning slightly to indicate to the the boy seated in his office to go out. Alhaji turned squarely on the manager as thirteen year old Akin walked out of the office. I know you have a camera in this office, turn it off now. The manager promptly pressed a red switch. As he did, seven of Alhaji’s men trooped into the office, three of them putting on starched blue police uniforms and carrying assault rifles. Who brought in that tape? I demand an answer now, one of the police men snarled in a manner that would have reminded World War II veterans of Gestapo commanders of the Nazi. He jerked at the manager’s tie pinning the man’s head to the table with his gun. After a few minutes of battering with the butt of the gun, the manager said, it was the police commander who had granted his men the interview and released the information to the pressmen.
Alhaji Kosoko laughed; the police commander is a loyal man. Very loyal.
If you had mentioned someone else you’d have been safe. Kill him. The man in police uniform simply raised his gun and released a loud bang into the manager’s left side. The noise triggered a flurry of activity outside the door. Unknown to the men, the manager had earlier switched on the camera in his office for emergency live broadcast to the media room when told to switch it off, so all members of staff had been watching the man interrogated and tortured on screen and transmitted the images on air. This was what caused the activity outside the door. Female staff members were crying as men of the police force surrounded the building. The young Akin was with Dr Badu who gave the remaining video and audio recordings to the men in the press room.
In the next four hours, the seven men that invaded the media house were arrested in a shoot-out with the police; the presidential candidate was shot by Dr Badu who saw him try to escape through a back window. Afterwards, the police captured him. Also, released were videos of Chief Gbolabo ordering the killing of Dr Agbabiaka and kidnap of two other lecturers from the University of Ibadan and Mrs Agbabiaka and her children. The evidence against the men was incontrovertible and the videos were too much to be covered up. The Olubadan was also arrested for aiding a culprit in the attempted murder of the royal griot of Ibadan, Professor Sanmi Aluko, popularly known as Sanmi Onigangan. Chief Gbolabo, Alhaji Kosoko and their accomplices were arrested and charged to face the law.
Police also identified the young lady in Alhaji Kosoko’s sex videos as his secretary, she was an accomplice to kidnap of a royal personality of Yorubaland but before they could hone in on her, she had disappeared and later appeared in a publicly released questioning session at the British council, from where she pleaded not guilty to any of the charges laid against her. She claimed to have only ignorantly supplied her employer the identity of a man who had attended a meeting and tried to coerce her into an illicit affair that was detrimental to her job and her relationship to her boss. She also claimed to have been in a well-known relationship with her boss for thirteen years and they were getting married in a week. She had just decided to take off the week shopping at Harrods Clothing in the UK for her coming wedding when she heard the news while processing her travel documents at the consulate very early on Sunday morning. The consular had granted her protection then since she is a British citizen. She was free from trial within the country and as long as Britain is concerned, the Yoruba authorities had all the information they needed. They should try their politicians first. The young lady got her visa and left the country with all the money she made in cash and intact.
A month later, she filed a lawsuit against Alhaji Kosoko demanding a million dollars in damages for unethical use of her services as a confidential secretary to obtain information for criminal intents. She only made a $1000 donation to the young unknown thirteen year old boy who helped uncover the truth. She said the donation was because she remembered she was thirteen years old when she met Alhaji Kosoko and fell in love with him. The amount of money she left the country with is not known but Alhaji Kosoko accused her of tapping into his accounts and making away with almost 5million dollars while Chief Gbolabo claimed to have given her fifty thousand dollars in cash when she visited him.
Over the next few weeks, it became obvious the country was not moving into a one-man presidency again like Nigeria did but at a very great cost, nobody could be trusted with power again and the people knew it so they’d rather serve as a check to each other. The politicians mentioned a man called Major Badoo as the implementer of their evil schemes but the man in question turned out to be a former officer of the defunct Nigerian Airforce, not an army major and now a respected lecturer of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the Federal University of Technology, Akure. He is known as Dr Akintola Badu and there was no record of him found in any of the videos,
neither was he recognized by any of the credible witnesses at the crime scene, not even the girls at the night party who claimed to have been questioned by a man.
To Uncle Jimi Alalo, his colleagues and friends, it was all just another story of intriguing politics, power and the heinous crimes it committed, the men it made and the beasts in them.
They all had the power to destroy themselves.
Actually, we all have the power to destroy ourselves and the man that should be feared most is the one who has the power to destroy himself.
Albeit, a new star had been shown in the young but brave grandson of the great historian of Ibadan, Sanmi Alubata.
Papa’s old body never fully recovered from the injuries of the gunshot wounds so he died two years later but not before relinquishing the title of Royal Griot and Historian of Ibadan to his grandson, Akinkanju Aluko, much to his father’s displeasure.
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