News Release: Group Says “Abraham Adesanya's Integrity Is Unassailable.”

Late Abraham Adesanya

We the under signed  are Yoruba nationalists and Nigerian patriots who worked closely with the late Leader of Afenifere,Senator Abraham Adesanya  in the last active years of his life,as members of the Political Committee of the Pan-Yoruba organization. We were variously motivated to sacrifice quality time of our productive years in devotion to the common cause by the exemplary leadership of Senator Adesanya who led an uncommon life of discipline, self-denial and accountability.

As we sat under his feet,he took us to the brook of wisdom with indelible importations for lifetime. One of such lessons was his anecdote of a man who went to bury his senior brother in shallow grave and was told by his junior brother who witnessed the scene that "enough notes have been taken from this outing to handle a similar occurrence tomorrow".

It is against this background that we believe it would amount to sinful silence not to raise our voices in a season of moral crisis where a murder accused is taking advantage of the national fickleness of the minds to rake mud against the memory of the late Adesanya   and his deputy, Chief Bola Ige;to muddle his role in the murder of Amazon Kudirat Abiola.
We have watched with trepidation the tragedy of a nation with fallen ethos slipping into hysteria over the cheap innuendoes and courtroom fables from Major Al Mustapha as he opened his "defence" in the murder charges levelled against him over the callous murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola on the streets of Lagos on June 4,1996.

Al Mustapha started his tales in the courtroom by lying that he had video tapes of Yoruba leaders led by Adesanya and Ige being induced to sabotage the June 12 struggle and sacrifice Abiola in the course of their visit to General Abdusalami Abubakar who became Head of State after the death of Abacha.It was however an anti-climax when the video he tendered happened to be footage of NTA report Nigerians watched in 1998 when Adesanya led a NADECO delegation to Aso Rock.

The serial liar was to crack under cross examination claiming that he had no evidence that the leaders of NADECO who visited the villa were induced. We were never in doubt from day one that Al-Mustapha was out to play the mind game by maligning these departed leaders who are no longer in a position to speak in the land of the living.It is not an accident that he never mentioned any of their living colleagues who were at the meeting with them. It is our position that the country must be  wary at this point not to allow an accused criminal in the dock to play on its intelligence by denying all the evils he coordinated as the Chief Security Officer to Abacha and witnessing to only events that happened while he can no longer be held accountable.

We are of the firm conviction that Nigeria still have to inquire into the events of June and July 1998 for posterity but the matter at Igbosere High Court is the murder of Kudirat.
 We must at this point express our worry and bewilderment over how the murderous events of 1994-1998 can so easily move into a distant echo and a video show from Al-Mustapha perfidy cinema now gripping the national space.

As for those fellows who know the truth and knew Adesanya inside out but are now agents of those lying against his memory for mischief or private gain; we can only leave them to their conscience.

To those who should speak at this point and are also mute we commend the immortal words of Martin Luther King:
"In the end,we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends".
We put it on eternal record that Adesanya lived his injunction that whatever anybody can't do on the rooftop,he must not do in his living room.

Finally, we pray that God grant eternal repose to the soul of Papa Adesanya who was imprisoned by Abacha,survived gun attacks from his goons and remained principled and un compromised  till death to the point that even in his grave he remains a shining example in honesty and purposeful leadership.
The same wishes to Chief Bola Ige who was assassinated as Nigeria Justice Minister but cannot get justice.

Signed:.
1 Jimi Agbaje
2 Prince Dayo Adeyeye
3 Akinyemi Onigbinde
4 Hon Funminiyi Afuye
5 Yinka Odumakin