By Tunde Odesola
In a jaw-dropping revelation, Ade Lawyer, the self-confessed hired killer, accentuated how subsequent Lagos State governments of Tinubu, Babatunde Fashola, and Akinwunmi Ambode, had indirectly made life unsafe, cheap and nasty through the abetment of NURTW activities in the state.
In a front-page story, “Confession Of An Alleged Assassin: How I Killed People For Money -Ade Lawyer,” published by the Daily Independent newspaper, on March 17, 2018, the assassin said, “After my release, I went back to Ajah and I started working again as a bus conductor and a driver. I worked in Ajah for like two years before I joined the National Union of Road Transport Workers, Ajah branch, and I was made a parking attendant at Phase One Unit in Ajah in 2004.
“After a while, I became king of the boys and I started collecting N50 from every bus that comes into that park. I later turned that my (parking attendant) position into a unit. I started collecting N100 security money from every commercial vehicle that made a turn at the Ajah garage. I also recruited some boys who started working with me.
“At the end of each day, we will share all the monies collected among ourselves and we will also give a part of it to the chairman of the unit where we worked.”
Ade Lawyer continued, “I did that for about six years before the Ajah branch chairman died and a caretaker committee led by one Mustapha (Adekunle) Sagoe was sent to take over the branch by the then state chairman. The caretaker committee stopped my job and I went to Sagoe, whom I knew very well, because he is also from Lagos Island, and I begged him to allow me to retain my job (in Ajah)…He snubbed me…”
The quotations here were the unforced words of the murderer. Now, let’s pause and chew on the kernel of my argument: Who is to be blamed when killers and hoodlums forcefully extort motorists and share money that should go to the government’s coffers in a state with an elected executive and legislature? Mark you, the Lagos State government since 1999 has never complained to the Office of the Inspector General of Police, IGP, about the disturbing activities of Lagos NURTW thugs. The insane manner Ade Lawyer took over public space unchallenged by the government, and started to force money out of motorists is typical of all NURTW parks across the country. The obscene scene painted by Ade Lawyer is what Lagosians, including children and the old, are afflicted with in the hell called garages everyday.
Can the Lagos State government under the leaderships of Tinubu, Fashola, Ambode and Sanwo-Olu claim not to know the activities of the hoodlums and killers masquerading as transport workers? What did each governor do to stop Lagosians from suffering the bloodletting and violence by NURTW vagabonds? The romance between Lagos State and Lagos NURTW not only makes thuggery attractive, it also makes NURTW scoundrels look like they are the only ones that can successfully operate commercial road transport.
According to an investigation by the International Centre for Investigative Report, ICIR, Lagos NURTW generates N123 billion annually. This is about the 2021-2022 budget proposals of Nasarawa, Niger, and Yobe, Taraba, Kogi, Ekiti, Osun, Benue, Ebonyi, Plateau, Adamawa, Enugu, Jigawa, Kebbi, Zamfara, Abia, etc states each. Sadly, no state in the country generates enough funds to fully execute annual budget proposals. Many financial experts believe the transport union generates far more than N123 billion yearly.
The colossal sum of N123 billion generated by the NURTW annually translates into N10.25 billion monthly, which is far higher than the combined annual capital expenditures of all federal and state tertiary institutions nationwide.
How can a worthy state government leave killers and thugs to collect billions of naira in unaudited funds from motorists and garage hawkers? How much of these funds is paid to government, how much ends in private pockets? The super-rich Frankenstein monsters created by the powers that be in Lagos State have bolted through the window; now, they’re dragging the thrones with princes, wrestling with lawmakers for maces, even as Alausa, the Lagos State seat of power, will loom in sight at the fullness of NURTW madness.
That scumbags largely operate commercial transport and collect revenue on behalf of state governments nationwide since 1999 is indicative of the hatchet job transport unions do for the political class.
Back to Ade Lawyer. The killer said he sided with the Chairman, Lagos State NURTW, Olohunwa, in 2010, when a supremacy fight broke out between Olohunwa and another faction that included Agbede, MC Oluomo and Sagoe. He said when Olohunwa lost out in 2012 as state chairman of the union, he went back to his hemp business, just as he got himself an AK-47 and a pistol.
Ade Lawyer explained that in 2015, he teamed up with the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, elements on Lagos Island to mobilise and win the presidential and state governorship elections for the PDP on the island. When the PDP lost the elections, after fierce gun battles which involved bloodshed, the killer said Sagoe and his men ordered all PDP supporters in the NURTW ‘to leave Lagos Island and follow President Goodluck Jonathan to his hometown in Bayelsa State.’ Thus he left the NURTW and started to kill for a living.
The leadership of the PDP, which included former President Jonathan, isn’t less guilty than Tinubu and the APC in sponsoring violence, as it was the case when the Jonathan government sponsored the Gani Adams-led Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC, to unleash violence on Lagosians during the countdown to the 2015 presidential election. News of NURTW members engaging in killings and violation of peace is also commonplace in states controlled by the PDP and other political parties.
However, Tinubu, an APC presidential aspirant, is being held to scrutiny in this article because his godson, MC Oluomo – an APC leader and bestial arrowhead – is covertly staking his claim to the Oshodi chieftaincy crown.
“Ko s’oba l’Oshodi, Oluomo sha la ni,” meaning, “There’s no king in Oshodi, we only have Oluomo,” is a popular refrain by a glorified thug who found fame and fortune chanting (not singing) Fuji music in croaky voice, unlike Fuji music creator and king, the late Dr. Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, who never mixed politics with his art.
Given the love of MC Oluomo for Fuji musicians to sing his praise, it is flabbergasting that before the throne of Oshodi recently became vacant, no musician has ever sung the praise of MC Oluomo in relation to his claimed royal family. Was he just born into a royal family last year? Why has no musician ever called him omoba (prince) if he was truly one – in all these years of frolicking?
Word has it that the crowning of another road transport leader as king in Lagos State is the sole impetus firing the desire of MC Oluomo to become king.
The wise one from India, Mahatma Gandhi, says, “Poverty is the worst form of violence,” I disagree. I, however, agree with the words of the Russian sage, Leo Tolstoy, who opines that “Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”
Were it not so, the Shehu Shagari-led National Party of Nigeria, NPN, (1979-1983), wouldn’t cuddle Bayo Success in Oshodi; the Olusegun Obasanjo-led PDP won’t caress Lamidi Adedibu in Ibadan, and Tinubu won’t kiss MC Oluomo in Oshodi.
After getting exhausted harassing and extorting innocent youths who carry laptops in their bags, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, should add the NURTW to their list of untouchables.
Nigeria: A scamming leadership ably supported by ruthless hooligans.
•Odesola, a journalist and public affairs analyst, writes from the United States of America, and can be reached via: Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com; Facebook: @tunde odesola; Twitter: @tunde_odesola
