One of the men at the centre of the crisis that has torn Ajaawa apart, Prince Gideon Oyekunle a.k.a. Ade Master, has spoken describing his experience since the predicament started as a travail whose origin is unclear to him.
Ade Master spoke with ogbomosoinsightonline.com on phone yesterday evening lamenting grievously that he was being persecuted by his people in Ajaawa for an offence he did not know about.
Hear him” I don’t know my offence in Ajaawa, I don’t know why they are after my life, I don’t know why they burned my houses including hotel, residential buildings, my work place (shrine), shops and those of my wives and children, they razed seven houses in all. Up till now, I don’t know my offence. Help me ask them.”
It will be recalled that events took a new dimension yesterday after about forty policemen from the office of Inspector General of Police, composed of SWAT operatives, special police squads, Intelligence Response Team (IRT) and others, stormed Ajaawa to invite for questioning in Abuja the chairman of Ogo-Oluwa local government, Mr. Seun Ojo; the Alajaawa of Ajaawa, Oba Thompson Adeyeye Oyetunji; and some others.
The police squad which also inspected the burnt properties of Ade Master however failed in picking the Oba and the chairman as the two were not around.
Meanwhile, at the palace, the Oba’s secretary was arrested just as at the chairman’s residence in Ogbomoso, one of his security aides was whisked away.
The chairman reacting to this in a phone conversation this morning expressed shock that the police would go to his house and start shooting and search his house as if he were a criminal. He asked also, “What is my offence?”
Continuing, Ade Master, who also contested the throne of Ajaawa before Oba Oyetunji was enthroned last year, submitted, “I consider my travail as envy-related. Did you read what the chairman, Seun (who is my nephew) and the Oba, said at their press briefing in Ibadan that I was using exotic cars, that I had police protection, that why am I so close to the police, that I am rich but have no source of income. All nonsense but it is jealousy.
“How can they say I have no work when I have a big hotel in Ajaawa? I am into traditional religion and people consult me on various life problems, and when your preparations are potent, people reward you handsomely. I don’t demand for money, people reward me according to the dictate of their mind after they used my preparations.
“I have a farm, which they know about, I have cacao plantations, I planted cassava, so, I don’t know what they meant by saying I don’t have a source of income. It is purely envy; they are only out to spite me. My work place (shrine) has been in existence for over 30 years before even the chairman knew his left from right hand.
“I located it in the forest away from the city centre so as not interfere with the churches within the city centre, I contribute to church development when it comes to donation, my wives go to church.
“So, no one can say I engage in criminal activities since all these years, nobody indicted me for kidnapping, no kidnap victim ever named me as the culprit, so, what is my offence? They didn’t find human bones of decapitated heads at my work place (shrine), I didn’t kill anyone, so what can they point to as my offence?
“They said I rescued police officers from mob action. Yes, the Area Commander called me that day that I should assist in recuing them because they were police officers from Abuja and not kidnappers as our people believed that day. What I was trying to prevent that day to refrain from killing policemen is now what they had perpetrated and they are running helter-skelter, begging me, asking people to appeal to me.
“A police officer was killed when they came to arrest Babanifa the other time, that is what has landed them in trouble now. That is my counsel that day, that if you killed police officers it would boomerang but they concluded I sided with suspected kidnappers. That is why they burned my houses. So, why have they fled?
“I was invited by the police too and I answered the summoning, why are they running when they are invited? They destroyed all I have built over the years. I invested in Ajaawa because of my love for the town, I could have invested my money elsewhere.
“I love the people of Ajaawa, I assist them, I recently released N2m to assist women who claimed they could not meet up with paying their gbomu-le-lantern loan (weekly loan repayments). See how they repaid me now. They showed me no iota of mercy, it is disappointing, I beseech people to come to my aid.
“I escaped with only one clothes which was on me that day together with each member of my family or else they would have burnt us in the inferno. And they said they had taken over my lands and that they had banished me from Ajaawa.
“They claimed I have police details protecting me, why wouldn’t I have? People were suddenly being kidnapped in Ajaawa, if one has the means why wouldn’t one take steps to protect himself?
“Why are they running, the police only want to investigate the matter and ferret out the truth, they should go to Abuja. Why did they machete and kill a policeman? Ask them what is my offence?
“Shouldn’t one love his town? They have destroyed me, everything I had amassed, people should help me. When I got to Ajaawa today and saw the scale of destructions visited on my properties I shed tears, asking rhetorically, what did I do? They burned everything, the Mikano generating plant at my hotel, everything, if you pull at the walls the impact of the fire will make it collapse.”
Meanwhile, the police have invited Oba Oyetunji and the council chairman aside others over the arson on Ade Master and the killing of a police officer during the midnight raid against the Araba Awo of Ajaawa, Chief Adeoye Ifaleye, a.k.a. Babanifa, whose whereabouts remains unknown and is not known whether he is alive or not.
