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Funsho Adegbola, the daughter of the late Chief Bola Ige, has recounted the haunting series of events that led to her father’s assassination, revealing eerie premonitions and symbolic warnings.
Ige, Nigeria’s ex-Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation was assassinated in his Ibadan home on 23 December 2001.
In an emotional interview on the radio talk show State Affairs with Edmund Obilo, as reported by PUNCH Online on Friday, Adegbola shared her experiences surrounding the tragedy. “I dreamt I was mourning, dressed in black,” she revealed.
Troubled by the dream, she confided in her father. His response was reassuring yet unsettling in hindsight: “Nobody can kill me; my life is in God’s hands.”
Adegbola recounted a peculiar incident at the palace of the late Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade, just days before the assassination. During a chieftaincy ceremony for the late Chief Stella Obasanjo, Ige’s cap was mysteriously removed.
“He told me, ‘In my entire political life, nobody has ever removed my cap,’” Adegbola recalled, emphasising how deeply symbolic and unprecedented her father found the act.
Reflecting on her father’s life, Adegbola described his simplicity and moral integrity. “As Minister of Power and Steel, he returned 16 official cars assigned to him, saying, ‘I can’t maintain more than two cars,’” she said.
His Spartan lifestyle extended to his notably basic security arrangements. “After his assassination, Kema Chikwe visited our home and was shocked to see that our doors were ordinary carpentry wooden doors, easily breakable,” she shared. “My father had no bulletproof doors or elaborate security, unlike many public officials.”
Despite escalating political tensions and threats, Ige remained steadfast in his faith and courage. Adegbola remembered a warning from a friend who had read a newspaper article suggesting her father might not return alive from an upcoming visit to Ife.
“I told him, ‘Daddy, it appears they will do something to you.’ He replied, ‘I am surrounded by the White Light of Christ through which nothing evil can penetrate.’” Adegbola noted that her father fasted daily, except on Sundays, and relied on his spirituality to navigate challenges.
Adegbola also linked the threats to her father’s political battles, particularly with Iyiola Omisore, then Deputy Governor of Osun State, during the era of Governor Bisi Akande’s administration. “There were political uprisings in Osun State then, and tensions were high,” she said.
Her father’s assassination coincided with these conflicts, a connection that remains a painful mystery.
The inability to obtain justice for Ige’s murder remains a devastating wound for the family. Adegbola lamented how her mother, a Justice of the Court of Appeal, was unable to secure justice for her husband. “It was a cruel irony that broke her spirit,” she said.
Adegbola’s memoir, He Gave Me Wings, sheds light on the enduring impact of her father’s death on their family and the nation.
She emphasised his legacy of integrity, courage, and selfless service, contrasting it with the current state of governance in Nigeria. “My father always believed, ‘Anything worth living for is worth dying for.’ He never pursued power for personal gain but for the betterment of others,” she said.
Ige’s assassination, according to his daughter, remains an unresolved tragedy, “but his values and principles continue to inspire those who remember him; his life serves as a powerful example of leadership, even as the pursuit of justice for his death remains an elusive goal.”
English (US) ·