By Dayo Ademola
Former governor Adebayo Alao-Akala has revealed that he had no hand in 2006 illegal impeachment of his former boss, Sen. Rashidi Ladoja.
Alao-Akala, who would be 70 next week, disclosed this in an interview with journalists in his Bodija, Ibadan home.
Asked why he appears to many as controversial, the Ogbomoso-born politician explained that “Let me guess; it is so because politically, I am an introvert. I do not believe in propaganda. I do not say what I do not believe in. Because of this, people do not know the stuff I am made of and people don’t know me.
“They don’t know the stuff I am made of. Because I don’t talk too much, they just guess. You know, when you don’t have much information about a particular person, you just guess. It is whatever information that is available that you will use. That is responsible for why they have erroneous opinions about me; I am not controversial.”
According to Saturday Punch’s report, Alao-Akala said that many people don’t know what actually led to the removal of Ladoja as governor.
“People don’t know what happened that time. I have tried to explain it in my memoir which, by the grace of God, will soon come out. For those who executed the plan to remove my boss, if they were to have their way and if not for constitutional barrier, I wouldn’t have been their candidate for the governorship position. But there was no way they could breach that constitutional provision, and there was no way they could remove both of us at the same time because I was not doing anything. I was hiding as a deputy governor. If they had their way, they would want another person to be the governor.
I did not play any role in the impeachment. I was in Ogbomoso when the impeachment was done. I was not in Ibadan. I wouldn’t have allowed that impeachment to take place. I would have just advised them to let us talk to my boss. My boss was adamant; he was fighting on all fronts that time and that was why they were able to hit him. He thought I was part of it, but I was not. I left Ibadan for all of them when I was about to be killed on December 18, 2005. I nearly lost my life; my office was bombarded. They fired bullets at my office. Luckily for me, I was not hit. The whole of governor’s office was deserted. I narrowly escaped being killed. I just used my experience to manoeuvre out of there. My then orderly also helped me to get out of the office.”