Last week, after long speculation on whether it will happen or not, the bulldozers from Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi, finally pulled down the estimated N800 million Music House of popular gospel artiste, Yinka Ayefele. Ayefele, a wheelchair-bound celebrity said his wife was at the home of Governor Ajimobi around 11 pm on August 18 till about 4 am on August 19, pleading with him not to demolish the building. However, on that same day, barely two hours later, Ajimobi’s bulldozers went to work.
Governor Ajimobi while justifying the demolition said being physically challenged is not an excuse to breaking the law. Ajimobi, who said this in an interview with the Yoruba service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, after the Eid-el-Kabir prayers in Ibadan, Oyo State, said, “Just like the house they said we demolished, that man didn’t obey the law. People are now saying because he’s physically challenged. So, if one is physically challenged, he should break the law? “They said he employed people, are armed robbers not employers of labour too? Should we now say because armed robbers employ people, they should continue to rob and terrorise others?
Mr. Toye Arulogun, the state Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, had claimed that the building contravened Sections 30, 31 and 32 of the Oyo State Physical Planning and Urban Development Law of 2012.
However, in a suit filed on behalf of Ayefele by Otunba Olayinka Bolanle, the musician sought an order of interlocutory injunction restraining the Oyo State government, the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, Attorney General of the state, Ministry of Environment and Habitat, K.I. Apanpa (Bureau on Physical Planning and Development Control), and Alhaji Waheed Gbadamosi (Chairman, Oyo State Task Force Committee on Demolition of Properties) from demolishing or attempting to demolish the property.
Chief Yomi Aliyu (SAN), counsel to Governor Ajimobi, denied in court that the government is unaware of the much publicised demolition. When Justice Iyabo Yerima of the Ring Road High Court told Ajimobi’s lawyer she was aware of the demolition of the Music House, Aliyu said: “if your Lordship is aware (of the demolition) we are not aware.
“If it has been done, it is the worst thing that can happen to anybody. We don’t know who did it. The first and second defendants (Ajimobi and Attorney General) are not aware of it. They were not parties to the demolition. My Lord, the question is: Who did it? I was briefed this morning. They said they didn’t know who did it. They were even thinking of setting up a panel of inquiry on it. I will abide by the ruling of the court that the threat has been carried out. I am not Jesus Christ. I can’t wake up a dead body. It is sad. I sympathise with them.”
Doesn’t that sound like the infamous Unknown Soldiers’ injustice meted out to the late Afro-beat maestro, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti?
Also, Alhaji Waheed Gbadamosi, the Director General of Physical Planning and Development Control, who heads the physical planning unit of the government, on his part, pointed out lapses of Ayelefe in not acceding to the demands of the town planning authorities on the regularisation of his town planning documents on the disputed building.
Gbadamosi said due process was followed in the demolition of the Music House, adding that “no court order restrained it from carrying out its statutory role in public interest.”
It is glaring from the denials and contradictory statements coming from the governor, his commissioners and aides that the motive behind this action is beyond law enforcement. This is especially given the fact that the same governor had sometime in 2016, when he visited the Music House, hailed the physically-challenged entrepreneur.
According to David Ajiboye, the media aide to Ayefele, when the governor visited the studio in 2016, he said people told him to demolish the building because Ayefele was not in his camp.
Ajiboye quoted Ajimobi during the visit in October 2016 to have said: “I want to use this opportunity to thank God for the ability to be here because when we contested the first time and won, a lot of people came to meet me to destroy the music house because Ayefele is not for us and he is always using songs to insult us. But I didn’t see any reason why I should demolish it because I felt if Ayefele is not for us now, he may be for us later. I am happy today that Ayefele is beside me now and I pray that the business will keep flourishing and this is the best studio I have seen in Oyo State.”
If Governor Ajimobi believes in the law, as he claims, why did he not wait for the outcome of the case instituted by the musician? How did the building he spoke so well of in 2016 become illegal in 2018?
This action is nothing short of executive highhandedness and recklessness. And it has been widely so condemned. In the first place, going into this war with the physically-challenged musician, the governor should have known that he does not stand a chance in the court of public opinion and that he will only emerge from it with a bloody nose. What the governor and his co-travellers do not know is that fighting against this category of special people is a war you can never win. Especially, where there is overwhelming evidence that there is more to the whole issue than meets the eye.
A very dangerous trend in our democratic dispensation is the stark reality that there is a very high level of intolerance that seem unparalleled in the annals of this nation. Our elected and appointed public office holders are exhibiting so much arrogance that one wonders if they still actually believe in the age long axiom that power actually belongs to the people.
With this seemingly helpless population of the masses rest the real power to decide the fate of these larger-than-life politicians and political office holders. This is the lesson that the then governor of Edo State, and now chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, learnt the hard way when he dismissed a seeming inconsequential street trader, Mrs. Joy Ifije, to go and die in 2013. The backlash from that reckless outburst was such that only he could explain.
Realising his costly mistake, Oshiomhole, retraced his step and not only apologised to the widow, but also offered her automatic employment as well as N2 million donation. It is also heart-warming to note that the governor, last Thursday, invited the musician to his office to do what he should have done ab initio. Discretion remains the better part of valour.
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