BY LEKE ADESERI, South West Regional Editor
IBADAN— WANTED kingpins of Oyo State National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, Alhaji Akinsola Lateef, a.k.a Tokyo, and Mukaila Lamidi, a.k.a Auxiliary, yesterday, continued to flex muscles even in hiding.

They have reportedly driven a wedge between the state’s chief security officer, Governor Isiaka Abiola Ajimobi and the chief crime fighter of the state, Police Commissioner Baba Adisa Bolanta.

MEETING—Oyo State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi (left) and Deputy Governor of Osun State, Mrs Titi Laoye-Tomori, representing Governor Aregbesola, during a joint meeting between Osun and Oyo State Governments on the crisis at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH, Ogbomoso, Oyo State at the Governor’s office, Agodi Ibadan, yesterday.

The impression being created is that while Ajimobi is behind Tokyo, the CP is protecting Auxiliary.

Stirring of controversy

The governor who stirred the controversy last Sunday, while speaking with the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, in his office, said information at the disposal of the state government was that the police sighted Auxiliary at a bank but left him untouched.

Ajimobi said: “From our information two days ago, the same Mukaila they (the police) said they were looking for went to the Olubadan branch of a bank to cash money. They saw him there and we confirmed it. So, where are the police looking that they cannot find him?”

Alhaji Bolanta, however, denied the allegation. He told Vanguard in a telephone conversation: “Well, I wasn’t really around for a better part of last week but that is besides the point. My deputy was around and if the governor had such information he should have passed it to the command.

“On my part, I can assure you that if I see Auxiliary, I will arrest him promptly. Even Tokyo that the government does not want me to arrest, I will arrest him.”

The CP noted: “An attempt to trivialise the issue of the last violent clash at Iwo road between the factions of NURTW and the subsequent declaration of the factional leaders wanted, is a case in issue that some cabal in the state are at work.

“It is not only absurd, but criminal for anybody or a group to trivialize such dangerous issues that threaten national security.

“At any rate nobody can stop the Police from performing its constitutionally assigned duties of protecting lives and property and apprehension of offenders among others. Oyo State Command wants to assure the general public of its commitment to get rid and put a final stop to this unwarranted violence, brutality and destruction of lives and property in the State.

“To this end the command is appealing to the general public to give useful information that will lead the Police to the arrest of Alhaji Akinsola Lateef, a.k.a Tokyo, and Mukaila Lamidi, a.k.a Auxiliary, for their involvement in the last violence particularly.”

Bolanta has nostalgia for past govt – Oyo gov

In reaction to CP Bolanta’s allegation, Governor Ajimobi who spoke through his Media Assistant, Dr. Festus Adedayo told Vanguard: “We are sure that the Oyo State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Adisa Bolanta, was misquoted. In the slim probability that he was not, Mr. Bolanta perhaps hasn’t woken from the slumber of the past when the governor picked for him the list of sacred cows to be pampered and the ones to be hounded.

“Governor Abiola Ajimobi has, times without number, given express order to the Commissioner of Police to arrest every person, no matter their standing in society, that is overtly or covertly connected to the NURTW unrest in Oyo State, either Auxiliary, Back-Axle; Tokyo or Osaka.

“To now allege that the governor does not want him to arrest someone could be either of two things: nostalgia for the inglorious past where sacred-cows ruled, or apprehension about the widespread calls for his removal from the people of Oyo State who feel he has a hand in the festering of the NURTW sore; the latter which he obviously dreads.”