He certainly was one of the shining stars in the South-west political arena until death came calling 25 years ago. Today, because of his impacts while he lived and the records of his public service, he remains unforgotten for several reasons as SUNNY IDACHABA writes.

Chief James Ajibola Idowu Ige, popularly known as Bola Ige, for short, until his death on December 23, 2001, was popular because he was the Attorney General of the Federation and a former governor of Old Oyo state between 1979 and 1983 during the Second Republic. 

Aside from that, he served in various capacities at the federal level such that his legacies and what he stood for has remained unforgettable in the minds of the people.

Chief Ige was one person whose passion to transform the yet ailing nation’s power sector was not in doubt. In fact, he was quoted as gleefully saying that if given the opportunity, within three months, power failure would be a thing of the past in the country. When former President Olusegun Obasanjo was voted in as president in 1999, Chief Ige was posted to head the Ministry of Power, but his impact was like a drop of water in an ocean because of the enormity of the rot within the system. He was unable to make significant improvements to the services provided by the then monopolistic National Electric Power Authority (NEPA).

His passion for the sector was, however, never in doubt until through a cabinet reshuffle, he was moved to the Ministry of Justice. He was in that capacity until he met his untimely death two days to Christmas in 2001. His death, like that of the late editor of defunct Newswatch Magazine, Dele Giwa, their killers are yet to be unravelled many years after. Since his death, what has remained about him are his unforgotten legacies.

Way back in the ‘70s, Chief Ige had been in the government; during the administration of former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, Ige was the federal commissioner for agriculture, a nomenclature similar to ministers today. In that capacity, he was noted for massive mechanised farming all through the region. 

Even though he had served at the federal level at various times, his political inclination had always revolved around the South-western region of the country, for example, apart from the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo under which he used to secure the governorship seat in 1979, he was at home with Action Group and Alliance for Democracy, two political parties whose deep roots were majorly known in the western part of the country, without serious national spread. This however didn’t make him less Nigerian nor did he berate other parties with national spread, for as he once puts it,

“The choice of a party anyone belongs to is decided by the political philosophy that person holds per time.”

As someone born in the North, but grew up in the South-west and made friends across national divides, he was gifted with the ability to speak the three Nigerian major languages. Aside from that, his oratorical prowess knew no bounds as he could hold his audience spellbound by his oratorical delivery anywhere. He developed this natural gift into the world of activism where he spoke against rights abuses and incongruities in many places.

In the early 1970s, during military rule, he devoted his time to the anti-racism campaign of the World Council of Churches where he helped to amplify that voice. It’s also not a surprise too that he was one of the pivotal founders of the influential Yoruba pressure group, Afenifere, which still exists today.

As of the period he was moved to the Ministry of Justice as its minister, the federal government was battling with some northern state governors over the implementation of Sharia Law. It was a challenging moment for Ige, though not an unfamiliar terrain as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).

As an affirmation of the federal government’s stand against the implementation of the religious law, Ige announced in November 2001 that the federal government would not fold its arms and allow Sokoto state government to execute the judgement of a verdict passed by a Gwadabawa Sharia Court to stone Safiya Hussaini to death, a woman allegedly caught in adultery.

In any case, Ige would be remembered for being the first minister to initiate a programme that would re-arrange and consolidate the laws of the federation, publish them in digital form and make them available on the ministry’s website so that Nigerians and non Nigerians can have easy access to the constitution.

There have been lots of commentaries on Chief Ige, especially after his death. Writing 20 years later, Deborah Eyibio, a commentator on national discourse said, “At 23, Ige became the organising secretary of the defunct Action Group in 1953. He used his charisma and natural organisational ability to increase the membership of the party far beyond the west where it was founded in 1951 as an offshoot of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa.”

Ige is today credited for many landmark projects while he served as governor. According to Eyibio, “Lover of history recalled how he implemented the free education policy of the UPN all through Oyo state and established the Ladoke Akintola University of Science and Technology (LAUTECH) among other great projects he established in the state which endeared him to the masses who continually sang his praises.”

Commenting on the death of Ige whose killers still remain a mystery, Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka remarked a few years ago that, “We have a phenomenon of unsolved murders and we know for a fact that some of them are the result of corrupt forces. A notorious example: A former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice in the country, Bola Ige, was assassinated in his bedroom. It was a political rivalry and contest.

“He was killed by the forces of corruption and so this compels one to ask what has happened to the investigation ordered by the president of the country into those high-profile murders. If we do not solve some of these murders, we cannot get into the heart, into the core of the corruption in this country and this involves also the authorised and constitutional agency of open society such as the judiciary.”

A journalist, Yushau Shuaib, is someone who nearly worked with Chief Ige in 1999. Even though that never happened eventually, he was close to the former minister, though from afar. In a piece he titled: ‘Ige from a Northern Perspective’ Shuaib said, “From the little I know about him, I can say that Ige had accomplished his dream as a legend in his political life. He was an erudite and distinguished lawyer; a courageous and active politician; fearless and principled columnist; a teacher’s teacher and a good disciplinarian to the core, who called a spade a spade.

“There were those rumours that he wouldn’t last with President Obasanjo because they would disagree on many issues and that he might lash out at the president in public and that he would fight against the interest of the north and make it worse off. But what did we see at the end of the day? Knowing his weakness that he couldn’t see evil and keep mute, he must state it point blank in his column, he suspended contributions to his Tribune column. That and his other silence on sensitive state matters were no sign of weakness, but a political strategy which made him more receptive to all and sundry.

“He was a friend to many northerners and open to criticisms. Many were surprised at the kind of grand reception accorded him by the government and people of Zamfara state during an official visit when the so-called imbroglio on Sharia was still raging.

“While he was fighting to see a more united cohesive Nigeria, tribal warlords would not give him a breathing space, but he remained calm and resolute and yet he was killed in their midst by the same bigots who would have wished he was murdered in places like Zamfara, Kano or even Abuja so that they would have waged another campaign of calumny. Were El-Mustapha and Bamaiyi released by then, a new conspiracy theory would have been prominent in their analysis. 

“Even with the sequences of gory events of attack on this humble orator, which were widely believed and confirmed as politically motivated, cacophonous singsongs would have rented the air. If not that Nigerians are mature and understand their antics, the country would have been hot with the so-called list of assassin targets in their circulation.”

Chief Bola Ige remains an inspiration to many people today because of his core political philosophy of no bitterness in politics and public service.