*Akinyode’s widow begs Aisha Buhari to help appeal to her husband
*Grant Gen Olanrewaju, others pardon as ‘remembrance gift’, Mar’wa ex-Commissioner begs Buhari
“Please, that forgiving heart that informed what you did to Abiola, considering that the officer, who confessed to be the reason for the problem of these officers, was pardoned by your predecessor, Jonathan, without such privilege extended to them, our husbands, and because all of us, including even the family of General Olanrewaju, are suffering because of this problem; kindly look at our situation and show mercy towards us by pardoning the living and dead among them”.
Calls on President Muhammadu Buhari to pardon Army officers namely General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, Col. Edwin Jando and late Lt. Col. Olu Akinyode, left out by the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s 2013 presidential pardon done for Lt. General Oladipo Diya, leader of the 1997 fathomed coup, and others have thickened.
This was coming as Governor of Plateau State, Mr. Simon Lalong granted pardon to four prisoners serving various jail terms in his state in the spirit of the New Year.
For years after their release in 1999 just as the military regime of General Abdulsalami Abubakar was rounding up to usher in democratically elected regime, General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, on behalf of all the officers including Diya, had been pleading for the mercy of the presidencies of Olusegun Obasanjo, Umar Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to show mercy upon them and grant them pardon with a view that their withheld benefits and pensions would be restored.
While Obasanjo, for reason best known to him according to our investigations, refused to grant Olanrewaju’s collective plea for all the officers, Jonathan who, upon accusation by Prince Bola Ajibola (SAN) of him calling an ex-convict in Chief Diepreye Alaimeiyeseigha his benefactor, did a presidential pardon which was done selectively.
The former President pardoned General Oladipo Diya, who was shown by all records to have cases to answer, General AbdulKarim Adisa and also pardoned Alaimeiyeseigha, who was globally reportedly reported to have jumped bail in United Kingdom but later jailed in Nigeria by Obasanjo’s Administration for corruption, but left General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, Col. Edwin Jando and Lt. Col. Olu Akinyode, who was said to have been tortured to death in prison for failing to make statement implicating his boss.
It is on record, The DEFENDER found out, that General Olanrewaju, who was one of later day successor of President Muhammadu Buhari as General Officer Commanding (GOC) Third Armoured Division of the Nigerian Army, Jos, was the Nigeria’s Minister of Communications trusted by General Sani Abacha regime and who therefore served Nigeria under the late Head of State with landmark achievements including the deregulation of the telecommunication sector freeing Nigerians from the monopoly of NITEL.
Olanrewaju, it would be recalled, did a good job transparently deregulating the telecoms sector through which he brought in Private Tecoms Operators (PTOs) whom he licenced and were already making Nigeria a better place as operators of wireless landlines made accessible to more Nigerians as against what the use of telephone was under NITEL.
It will also be recalled that Olanrewaju, who due to the deregulation gave live to Intercellular, Multi-Links, Globacom and a host of others, was on his way to launching the GSM communication system at the time he was implicated in the Diya-led coup of 1997, which he insists on not partaking in and General Diya and General Ishaiya Bamaiyi’s recent book have shown Olanrewaju did not partake in.
Why he and officers directly working under him while office and who were dragged into the coup allegation that later led to their convictions and sentences along with General Diya, like General Olusegun Obasanjo, Col. Lawan Musa Gwadabe, Col. Gabriel Ajayi and others involved in similar earlier of such problem in 1995, were left out of the presidential pardon done by Jonathan remains frustrating to Olanrewaju and other Nigerians who have continued to plea on his and others’ behalf.
In a recent publication of The DEFENDER, Widow of the late Army Colonel Olu Akinyode begged President Muhammadu Buhari to “Forgive, forget and pardon my husband, Gen Olarewaju, others”.
Mrs Akiyode, now 60, and 20 years since her husband died (December 1998) in prison, at the age of 42, wants Buhari to “please help look at our case, forgive, forget and pardon my husband, Lt. Col. Oluwole Oyebanji Akinyode (late); forgive, forget and pardon his boss, Major General Tajudeen Olanrewaju; and forgive, forget and pardon his other colleague, Col. Jando, for the sake of Allah, Megrima” (tears and cries).
Mrs Akinyode’s level of suffering as a widow is mind-boggling as, aside the major support she got from the boss of her husband, General Olanrewaju, upon his and others’ release without her husband in 1999, has, for 21 years now, done all alone with what she earned as a teaching service staff member of Lagos State but now retired. Mrs Akinyode said, “Sir, my children and I have suffered.”
She ventilated the suffering of her family and, on behalf of the wives of all affected officers, pleaded for help. Her husband had been imprisoned by the Abacha military junta over the 1997 ‘phantom coup’ allegedly led by Lt General Oladipo Diya (Rtd) and the late General Abdulkarim Adisa.
“Please, that forgiving heart that informed what you did to Abiola, considering that the officer, who confessed to be the reason for the problem of these officers, was pardoned by your predecessor, Jonathan, without such privilege extended to them, our husbands, and because all of us, including even the family of General Olanrewaju, are suffering because of this problem; kindly look at our situation and show mercy towards us by pardoning the living and dead among them”.
General Mar’wa ex-Commissioner pleads
Among Nigerians and family members who have joined Mrs Akinyode in the pleas for mercy for President Muhammadu Buhari to pardon the officers was younger brother of General Olanrewaju and former Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture during the military administration of Brigadier General Muhammad Buba Marwa in Lagos State, Dr. Mufutau Animashaun, who urged the President to “for the sake of Almighty Allah and significance of the fact that December 17 that is your 76th birth anniversary is also death anniversary of our father” revisit the Diya and co issue of 1997 with a view to forgiving, pardoning and releasing all benefits and entitlements of one of his successors as General Officer Commanding (GOC) Third Mechanised Division of the Nigerian Army Jos, Major General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, who the past administration of Goodluck Jonathan left out in his selective pardon. The former Commissioner made the appeal on Monday December 17 in reaction to a publication in The DEFENDER and a Facebook post by a passionately concerned journalist, Prince Bashir Adefaka The former Commissioner in a message to The DEFENDER also appealed to the President to seize the significance of “December 17” to both his and the Animashuan family of Lagos where General Tajudeen Olanrewaju’s father, Alhaji Abdul Yekin Afolabi Olanrewaju Animashaun, who died on December 17, 1996 belonged, to pardon his elder brother and assuage strained nerves by so doing. If President Buhari can grant this appeal, Dr. Animashaun said, it will be treated as “remembrance gift” by the Lagos largest family.Prisoners pardoned in Plateau
In pardoning the four prisoners in Plateau, Governor Lalong’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Mark Longyen, disclosed on New Year day of Tuesday January 1, 2019 that:
“The decision was taken after consultation with the State Advisory Council on Prerogative of Mercy.
“It is in exercise of the powers conferred on the governor under Section 212 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).
“The sentences of three of the convicts were commuted to absolute pardon, while the third convict had his life sentence commuted to 21 years imprisonment,” he said.
According to the statement, Abdullahi Musa, Rev. Samson Bisat and Chikwu Anadi were granted absolute pardon while Emmanuel Ochiba who was sentenced to life imprisonment has been commuted to 21 years jail term.”
Lalong called on the people of the state and the Nation at large to commit the year 2019 to sobriety, penance and forgiveness.
He urged them to pray fervently for divine intervention in the affairs of Plateau and Nigeria.
“No challenge under heaven is immune to the power of prayers,” he added.
