I agree wholly with Mr. Oluwasina Ogungbade, the incumbent Honourable Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice of Ogun State, Nigeria that land grabbers and indeed all other criminals are so powerful to the extent that they have compromised all the apparatuses of law enforcement agencies and indeed all the critical stakeholders in the justice sector which make it a lot easier to bully their ways through any means to achieve their nefarious ends.
That was my experience when I was in office as the Attorney-General and Commissioner for justice in Oyo State between August 2011 to May 28, 2015.
Land grabbers work in cahoot with the police and the magistrates( and corrupt Judges) in most cases.
I checkmated a more sophisticated land grabber , Professor Dupe Olatunbosun, now deceased. Professor Dupe Olatunbosun was a canterkerous fellow and a very litigous person while he was on this terrestial part of the planet. He was one of the prominent clients of my Principals at Olujinmi & Akeredolu law firm. If you care to know the kind of creature that Professor Dupe Olatunbosun was , kindly read the reported cases of Professor Dupe Olatunbosun v. NISER, Professor Dupe Olatunbosun v. Madaki and Professor Dupe Olatunbosun v. Anenih among others that are readily contained and available in several law reports.
With the aid of a compromised Chief Magistrate, Professor Dupe Olatunbosun ensured that one of the real land owners that he wanted to grab their lands at all cost was actually convicted and sentenced by his compromised Chief Magistrate in order to intimidate the other 6 to surrender their lands to him.
However, the defendants’ counsel, a very respected Senior member of the Bar, the brilliant, cerebral and upright person, Mr. Shonibare, a native of Ila Orangun was very smart, he made a no case submission in respect of all the other cases which the Chief Magistrate promptly overruled.
Instead of proceeding with the case and likely played into the hand of the corrupt Chief Magistrate, the Counsel appealed against the decision overruling the no case submissions and also against the conviction and sentence of the other defendant.
The lot fell on us to defend the appeals. Upon close reading and scrutiny of the entire files, we discovered that the Land Grabber who was the Complainant in the 7 charges was merely using the cases and the instruments of the state to harass, oppress and intimidate the hapless but innocent land owners. This became more apparent because we even saw in the file the existence of 2(two) earlier civil cases which the Professor had filed against the fathers of the defendants and which were both dismissed and even one of them he lost at the Appellate court.
Armed with those documents, I went to the High Court myself on the dates that each of the appeal came up for hearing and informed the court that we could not in good conscience opposed any of the appeals and we asked the respective judges that heard the appeal to allow them for being meritorious. All the appeals were thus allowed and each of the Judges took their turns to commend me in their judgement for the principled stand we took.
Before the hearing date of the 7 appeals at the High Court, some compromised in the Ministry had leaked my strategy and decision not to oppose any of the appeals to the oppressive Professor. He did all he could do through his powerful connections to exert pressure on me to grant fiat to his personal Attorneys to prosecute the appeal. I refused to yield my grounds but I replied him that I wont grant fiat to anybody to commit atrocities.
He wrote petition against me to the Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi of blessed memory who promptly informed him that he will never interfere in the way I was running the affairs of the Ministry of Justice because ” I am not versed in laws at all”
The land grabber didn’t stop there, he waged serious war against me and wrote a petition in bound volume against me to the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee in 2016 when I applied to become a Senior Advocate of Nigeria in that year. The petition he submitted against me was bounded like a final year project of the LL.B programmed and he twisted and distorted many facts in it and alleged that I took money (bribes) from the counsel to the defendants/appellants whom he alleged that he saw with his very own eyes bringing money in Ghana Must Go bags to me in the Ministry of Justice, hence the reason that ” I entered a nolle prosequi in all the matters”. Also that the defendant’s counsel is my ” bosom friend”.
So many people including my friends, colleagues and some senior lawyers advised that I should go and beg the Professor so that his petition won’t be an clog in my aspiration to become a Senior Advocate in 2016. I rudely turned down and ignored their unsolicited advice and reminded them that as a Muslim ( though I am not a devout one but a very liberal and weak muslim), only Allah (swt) confers any honour , privileges and even adversity on any human being. I told them I cannot even be prevented from becoming SAN in that year 2016 or at any other time by the LPPC except if Allah permits same to occur, more so that though I desire to become a SAN but that I am not desperate because it is not the rank that would define or make me. To me, the coveted rank is just an icing on my already well-baked cake. After all, I was not a Senior when I became the Attorney-General in 2011 and until I voluntarily exited the office gloriously and meritoriously on the 28th May, 2015. Yet, some Senior Advocates till date lobby to become Attorneys-General. What they desperately lobbied for and aspired to be, providence thrusted it on my laps by using my cerebral, suave, decent and finicky Governor, Senator Abiola Adeyemi Ajimobi. May Allah continue to accept his shortcomings, forgive his shortcomings, expand and illuminate his grave and continue to admit him into aljannah fridaus. Ameen 🙏. I will forever be indebted to Senator Abiola Ajimobi who unarguably is the father of the modern Oyo State. Senator Ajimobi trusted me wholly and believed in me to the extent that he never for once withheld his approval for any memorandum or any requests that I made to him in the discharge of my duties as the Honourable Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice of Oyo State. In actual fact, I had in place a blank approval to run the office as I like but with a rider from him that ,” OJ the AG, but please know and remember that whatever you do in that ministry, posterity shall later judge you and above all you shall render account of your stewardship to Allah on the day of judgement ”
I stand tall and make bold to say and without being immodest and calling the God that I served as a witness that I never betrayed the trust that my Governor reposed in me and also that I did not abuse my oath of office throughout my tenure in office.
The LPPC wasted no time in dismissing the petition when they got my response with had the 7 judgements of the High Court annexed to it.
The Professor didn’t even stop there, he later wrote about 7(seven) petitions against me to the NBA in several volumes. Without calling on me to respond to any of those petitions and even without informing me at all, the cerebral and very upright General Secretary of the Bar at the time , Mazi Afam Osigwe( now a Senior Advocate of Nigeria by the grace of God) dismissed in limine all the petitions. That decision of the GS annoyed the Professor who I later learnt turned round to face the GS by writing series of frivolous petitions against him too to the President of the Bar.
It was about a year after that Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN informed me at the NBA conference in 2015 after I had left the office as HAG that ” one Professor Dupe Olatunbosun wrote petition against you that you entered nolle. HAG, nothing to worry about because I dismissed all the petitions without calling on because they were all spurious and baseless.”
The Professor did not even give up because when he later found a pliable and compromised General Secretary to use just like the Chief Magistrate that he compromised and used to harass and oppress the innocent land owners , he sent in another petition against me after I had left office as the HAG in 2015. The General Secretary that succeeded Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN was no other person than Aare Isiaka Abiola Olagunju( also now a Senior Advocate of Nigeria by the very special grace of God).
Aare Isiaka Abiola Olagunju, SAN who was even much more senior at the Bar than his 2(two) predecessors in the office of the General Secretary of the Bar, my very good friend ,brother and confidant, Akajiugo Emeka Obegolu( who is now also an SAN by the grace of God) and later Mazi Afam Osigwe,SAN sent the petition written against me by the Professor to respond to and which petition the Professor had at that time expanded to include 6(six) legal officers in the Ministry of Justice of Oyo State. I replied the NBA letter and attached copies of the earlier decisions of the NBA on the matters where I was given clean bill of health and I also referred to the earlier decision of the LPPC on the petition.
Aare Isiaka Abiola Olagunju ,SAN for reasons best known to him but which was totally not rooted in any law or rule bluntly refused to agree with my response, and instead asked me to respond to the Professor’s petition failing which he wrote that” you shall be referred to the Displinary Committee of the Bar for appropriate sanctions “.
I reluctantly responded and attached as annexures all the judgements of the High Court, the earlier Court of Appeal judgement between the fathers of the defendants and the Professor as well as all the decisions of Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN on the earlier petitions written against me by the Professor .
The opening paragraph of my response to the GS was that none of the 6 legal officers was in any way liable or had anything to do with the matter but that I was fully and wholly responsible for the decision that I took in not defending any of the meritorious appeals and that all the legal officers names should be should be let off and struck off the petitions while I should be allowed to face the allegations squarely.
I was shocked beyond marrows when I received a summon from the Abuja panel of the NBA Disciplinary Committee that I should appear before it along with the 6(six) legal officers over the petitions of the vexatious Professor.
I called the Secretary of the Panel, one Emeka who is a fine and upright Gentleman that I have not had the opportunity of meeting till today and told him bluntly that he should let his Chairman and other members of the panel know that I will not dignify them with my appearance over petitions that had earlier been dismissed severally by the NBA. The Chairman of the Panel, Mr. Akinlolu Kehinde, SAN also a very fine Gentleman and a fortright person asked me not to take that route but I refused to heed his advice.
The petitions later died a natural death when the Petitioner, the oppressive and vexatious Professor Dupe Olatunbosun also died a natural death about a year after.
I have gone through the rigours of all the foregoing explanations to buttress the post made by the incumbent Honourable Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice of Ogun State that Land Grabbers are very powerful set of people who even have at their disposals and deployments machineries of the state and law enforcement agencies which include the police, the magistrates and even some dishonest staff of the ministry of justice which in my own case included my then Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr. Adeoye a very Senior member of the Bar which I later moved away from that office to another office, stylishly, as a demotion for the inglorious roles that he played in the matter. I brought in another DPP to replace him and the new DPP that I brought on board then was a godfearing, honest ,ascetic, principled ,cerebral and a well dresser, but integrity personified, Mr. T. M. Abdul-Ganiyu whom Allah(swt) has duly rewarded for his stoic and selfless services to humanity with his elevation to the bench of the Customary Court of Appeal of Oyo State as a Judge of that Court.
God later vindicated me before the demise of the canterkerous Professor when things fell apart between him and his compromised Chief Magistrate, Mr. Muyideen Salami against whom the Professor later wrote petition that chronicled some of the illegal deals that they had done together and the Chief Magistrate was then demoted by the Judicial Service Commission of Oyo State.
My final take on all these is that in confronting the menace of landgrabbers and indeed all other crimes, all the critical stakeholders in the justice sector must be ready to play their roles in accordance with the laws and full respect to the Rule of law ,but most importantly must be not only be God-fearing but godly without being unnecessarily religious. Courage is also very vital and like my Principal, Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu, SAN and the incumbent Governor of Oyo State is fond of saying that ” we must be ready at all times to prosecute our convictions with courage”. Criminals too pursue their convictions with courage, therefore to combat crimes and criminals, all well-meaning persons need greater courage and I dare say absolute courage to bring criminals to justice. One must be fearless and should not be afraid of threats of death and or even death itself at all. Like I used to say when I received such grievous death threats that ” I am not afraid of death at all, after all, Jesus Christ/ Prophet Isa( PBOH) died at the age of 33 and he was unmarried. Am I not lucky that I am now 53 years old, married and blessed with children. There is no fear except the fear of fear itself. Death shall come unannounced one day whether we like it or not as it we are all mortal beings”.
In all these , I glorify Allah always for all He has bestowed on me and for the kind of life I choose to live which is to different from the usual madding crowd of Nigeria and by extension Africa. However, it would be unforgivable of me if I refused to acknowledge the virtues of Omoluabi instilled in me from my cradle by my parents who were known by all and sundry in our Ita-Ege and Idi-Aro communities as devoted Muslims, God -fearing personality and extremely honest and fortright man and woman. May Allah continue to accept their homecomings, forgive their shortcomings, expand and illuminate their graves and continue to admit them into aljannah fridaus. Ameen. I am yet to meet or see a more honest human beings than my both parents. I am always proud of my pedigrees which may not be wealthy materials wise but extremely rich in integrity and due services to God and humanity.
Finally and most importantly, Junior Chambers International (JCI) really moulded and still moulding my life till date and I can assert without missing a beat that if all human beings in this world can adopt the creeds of JCI and marry it whatever religious inclinations we may believe in, this world would be a better and livable place for all of us. Kindly google or visit JCI website to experience the creeds of JCI and I can tell you for free that you will be better for it.🙏
I must not also fail to acknowledge a worthy mentor , a role model and a great benefactor , JCI Senator (Dr.) Adesina Adegunle who invited to become a member of JIC in 1996, I am forever indebted to you Sir for that great and beneficial lead. May your shadow never grow less Sir and may you never know a better yesterday 🙏.
As we say in JCI, service to humanity is the greatest work of life.
Dated at Heritage Hotel, Akure, Ondo State of Nigeria, this Sunday, the 13th day of November, 2022.
JCI Senator Mutalubi Ojo Adebayo,
Asiwaju of Ita-Ege and Idi-Aro in Ward 5 of the Ibadan South-East Local Government Area of Oyo State of Nigeria
Email: adebayoojo90@gmail.com
+2348033275495
+2348181585848
