Can Oyo State contain Tokyo and Governor Akala?

However, but the unfolding events within and around the Oyo NURTW since that time, particularly the situation where the State government publicly announced the proscription of the union few hours after Tokyo’s repossession of his court-reinstated mandate, gives a lot of concern to watchers of developments in the Pacesetter state.  Governor Christopher Adebayo Alao-Akala had […]

However, but the unfolding events within and around the Oyo NURTW since that time, particularly the situation where the State government publicly announced the proscription of the union few hours after Tokyo’s repossession of his court-reinstated mandate, gives a lot of concern to watchers of developments in the Pacesetter state.  Governor Christopher Adebayo Alao-Akala had attributed the proscription of the NURTW to the crisis rocking the union in the state.  But Tokyo in a sharp reaction, described the governor’s action as an unconstitutional and undue interference in the NURTW affairs.  Tokyo maintained that his executive will resist it constitutionally in the court of law.  According to Tokyo, the governor with his proscription order, “has publicly revealed to the world that his government had all along been behind the mask in the serial crisis fomented within the Oyo NURTW by the sacked chairman, Alhaji Lateef Salako a.k.a. Eleweomo.”

Tokyo had posited that the labour law as regards the NURTW is very clear, saying that the union and its executive is vested with the powers to manage the affairs of its members as stipulated in the union’s constitution.  He had further queried:  “The most pertinent question is does any state government has the constitutional power to proscribe a national union like the NURTW?  Another question is why is it now that such a pronouncement is coming up barely few seconds after my reinstatement following the judgment of the National Industrial Court?  And at a time when their renowned instrument of oppression and hooliganism is being judicially flushed out of office which they had hijacked through the back door?” 
The National Industrial Court, in its judgment, had nullified Tokyo’s purported removal from office on 22nd June, 2009, as the chairman of the Oyo State Council of the NURTW, and declared that the purported vote of no confidence passed by some members of the union, and upon which the National Executive Council of the NURTW erroneously acted, “is unknown to the NURTW constitution and so is null and void.”  The 45-page judgment of the Justice B. A. Adejumo-led National Industrial Court had read in part: 
*  That the 1st defendant, Alhaji Lateef Salako a.k.a. Eleweomo, is restrained from parading himself as the Acting Chairman of the Oyo State Executive of the NURTW;
*  That the 2nd defendant, the NURTW, is restrained from recognizing or in any way dealing with the 1st defendant as the Acting Chairman of the NURTW in Oyo State; and
*  That the state of affairs of the NURTW in Oyo State prior to the dissolution of the State Executive Council and the appointment of the 1st defendant as the Acting Chairman shall be reverted to immediately.
But Governor Alao-Akala, while proscribing the NURTW in Oyo State few hours after Tokyo repossessed his mandate, declared saying that “henceforth and until further notice, the 33 Council Chairmen will coordinate the activities of the union at their various motor parks.”  While maintaining that he was exercising the powers vested on him through Section 62A of the Criminal Code, Laws of Oyo State 2000, the governor directed the Local Governments to establish what he called, the Council Park Managers to administer the motor parks and garages all over the state and “instructed the police to come down forcefully on any of the factions found to have precipitated the crisis.”
“It is totally unacceptable for any group to visit violence on the society and put lives and properties of the good people of the State in danger,” a government statement signed by the Special Adviser to Governor Alao-Akala on Public Communication, Prince Dotun Oyelade, had said, stressing that the administration will sustain the peaceful coexistence in Oyo State with all its might.
Alas! crisis erupted in Ibadan motor parks a few days after when it eventually dawned on the NURTW members loyal to Tokyo that the “Council Park Managers” stationed by government at the various motor parks and garages, in actualizing its resolve to take over the parks, were union members loyal to the Eleweomo group. The ensuing battle could only be imagined.  It was in that scenario that one Olasunkanmi, loyalist to Tokyo, was killed by people suspected to be policemen in their attempt to flush Tokyo men out of the motor parks.
The lingering crisis has continued to take dangerous dimensions all along until midnight of Wednesday, 15th Sptember, 2010 when the unbelievable happened as hoodlums in their hundreds, allegedly accompanied by some policemen led Eleweomo and Alhaji Mukaila Lamidi a.k.a. Auxiliary in a convoy to the Olomi, Ibadan, state secretariat of the NURTW, “with a mission to kill Tokyo.”  At the end of the ensuing onslaught, three people were reportedly killed while not less than ten vehicles were razed just as about 81 others including an exotic Jeep belonging to Tokyo were vandalized by the invaders.

Whilst the problems within the Oyo NURTW continued unabated, members of the public waited endlessly for the state police command to take drastic measures upon whoever might have been incriminated in the recurring crisis until the leakage of two secret police wireless messages despatched to the Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Baba Adisa Bolanta, by the police investigating team led by a Superintendent of Police.  Dated 15th and 16th September 2010, with Ref. Nos. CJ: 4161/OY/SNY/Vol.1/189 and CJ: 4161/OY/SNY/Vol.1/190 respectively, copies of which were stumbled upon by journalists in Ibadan, the signed security reports which were aptly titled “Conspiracy and Malicious Damage” remarked that it was mainly for the “immediate” information and attention of the CP. 
The documents had indicted Eleweomo in the Wednesday midnight invasion of the Olomi State secretariat of the NURTW as one of the two police wireless messages read in part: “Some group of miscreants suspected to be members of the drivers union alleged to be of Salako Eleweomo faction, besieged the union secretariat at Olomi, Ibadan and in the process attacked other members of Alhaji Tokyo faction.”  Continuing, the police report which confirmed that the invaders “caused damage to several vehicles,” added that “detectives visited the scene of crime and recovered several empty shells of cartridges.”  It further stated that photographs of the scene were taken by the police detectives.
The second report quoted an informant as intimating the police detectives that some of the hoodlums who were armed with guns and cutlasses, could be identified if seen.  According to this report, the invading hoodlums, on arriving the Olomi State secretariat, “caused damage to about seventy vehicles, fifteen motorcycles, some office equipment, values of which are yet unknown and carted away cash estimated at about N1million property of the state NURTW.”  Unconfirmed reports however said that the signal report was rejected by the state police boss who had already called for the file for reasons yet unknown.

The next thing that the anxious people of Oyo State woke up to see the following day was the sudden re-deployment of the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) and the Divisional Crime Officer (DCO) in charge of the case following the first information report of the police investigating teams that indicted the sacked chairman of the Oyo NURTW, Alhaji Lateef Salako, a.k.a. Eleweomo, in respect of the dawn invasion of the union secretariat.  In addition, three policemen are currently being detained by the State Police Command for allegedly leaking to newsmen, the contents of two police wireless messages relating to the midnight invasion of the Olomi, Ibadan, State secretariat of the NURTW, which led bloody clash between the union members. The Divisional Police Officer in charge of the Sanyo Police station and his deputy who is the Divisional Crime Officer, have already been re-deployed from their duty posts in the wake of the leakage of the reports of the police detectives. 
While the DPO was said to have been re-deployed to the headquarters, the DCO was reportedly transferred to Eruwa.  Sources named the detained policemen as Corporals Victoria Folorunsho, Ojo Ezekiel and Betty, attached to the Sango Police Station.  It was reliably gathered that they are currently being held at the State Criminal Investigation Department, Iyaganku, Ibadan, the state capital.  While Folorunsho was said to be the Investigating Police Officer in charge of the case, Ezekiel was attached to the station’s “B” Department while Betty works in the  Administrative Office. They were all arrested on Monday and were interrogated by senior police officers. 
Media reports had on Monday quoted extensively from the wireless messages that indicted the Eleweomo faction of the Oyo NURTW, for the violent attack on the union’s Olomi secretariat and its environs that left no fewer than three persons dead, scores injured and over 83 vehicles vandalized.  Signed by the DPO, the reports were addressed to the state Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Bolanta for “immediate’ information and attention.  It was reliably gathered from the Oyo State Police Command that Bolanta, who is apparently not comfortable with the media publication of the reports, had ordered the immediate re-deployment of the affected officers.  But indications from the Oyo State Police Command at about noon on Tuesday, revealed that the detained policemen might be undergoing orderly room trial where they were being questioned by an Area Commander and some other top police officers. 
According to sources, the mobile telephone handsets of the detained policemen were seized while their interrogators were scrolling through their call logs and messages in search of things that could implicate them.  Bolanta, when contacted on telephone, confirmed the re-deployment of the DPO and the DCO saying the exercise had nothing to do with the leakage of the detectives reports over the NURTW matter.  He however denied knowledge of the detained policemen.  His words:  “They (DPO and DCO) were redeployed because of the violence recorded in their area and not because of the leakage. They have been re-deployed before the leakage.  Nobody is detained. I am not aware of any detention.”
But in resolve to identify the source of the leakage of the detectives report that purportedly indicted Eleweomo over the invasion of the union’s secretariat, the State Police Command has arrested yet another policewoman within the command who is already being quizzed alongside those earlier nabbed. 

The latest policewoman, Constable Olubunmi Awe, a traffic warden, attached to Sango Police Station, Ibadan is being quizzed by superior officers at the headquarters of the State Police Command in connection with the leakage to newsmen of two police wireless messages relating to last week’s bloody clash that involved the two factions of the drivers union in the state.  It was gathered that Constable Awe’s name came up in the course of investigation apparently because as a traffic warden, her traffic point is located in Olomi which is not too far from the secretariat of the union.
She was suspected to have made friends among members of the NURTW faction led by Alhaji Lateef Akinsola a.k.a.Tokyo, and could have leaked the report which incriminated Eleweomo.  According to sources, Constable Awe joined the other three embattled policemen and their erstwhile Divisional Police Officer and the Divisional Crime Officer in undergoing interrogation at the SCID on Wednesday before they were released in the evening with a directive to return on Thursday for another round of interrogation.  It was reliably gathered that the thrust of their investigation is to identify who made photocopies of the wireless messages before they found their ways to journalists’ hands.