10 People killed, 50 houses burnt in Edo kingship tussleThe tussle over the 'Aidonogie' stool in South Ibie clan in Etsako West Local Government area of Edo State took a bloody turn over the week end as supporters of the two claimants engaged themselves in a fight that left no fewer than 10 persons dead and over 50 houses and many cars burnt.Although, the police confirmed only two persons dead in the two-day battle, Daily Independent gathered that the communal war was still raging last night with women, children and the aged relocating to neighbouring towns and villages.It will be recalled that a Benin High Court, presided over by Justice M. O Ighodaro, on Wednesday restrained Edo State Government from presenting the staff of office to Kelvin Aliyu Danesi on May 23 or any other day pending the determination of a motion on notice brought before it by counsel to the plaintiffs, Roland Otaru (SAN).Chief Shaibu Imogere, Prince Abu Umoru, and Prince Yesufu Umoru, plaintiffs in the suit, filed the action for themselves and on behalf of the Ogiator branch of Okhokho ruling house.Reports had it that despite the court order, the Aidonogie palace was still putting every arrangement in place for the governor to perform the ceremony on May 23 and this was said to have provoked supporters of the other factionReacting to the latest development, however, Danesi told newsmen that the crisis was fueled by the chairman of the Estako West Local council, Gani Audu.He insisted that Oshiomhole did not recognize him because they were friends, adding that successive regimes of Lucky Igbinedion who presented him with the staff of office and Prof. Osunbor have already recognized him as the ruler of the townBut the Vice-Chairman of the local government. Jimoh Omogbeni, denied the accusation, insisting that as the chief security officer of the council, the chairman was out to ensure that peace and order were maintained in the area.In another development, 17 persons were on Sunday killed on the Lagos-Benin Expressway when a Toyota Hiace commuter bus plunged into Aden River near Okada Town in Edo State.This is coming barely 48 hours after 60 persons were similarly roasted inside a luxury bus on Benin-Auchi-Abuja Expressway.Daily Independent gathered that the Benin bound vehicle which took off from Ojota Motor Park in Lagos had a head-on collision while struggling the with a truck belonging to a construction firm which was carrying out repairs on the road.The bus, said to be carrying 20 persons made up of 17 males, one female and two children, then lunged into the river.The three survivors in the accident were rushed to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH).As at press time, officials of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) were still busy trying to recover the bus from the river.Some of the recovered bdies were deposited at the UBTH mortuary.The luxury bus that claimed 60 lives on Friday, according to reports, was heading to Onitsha from Sokoto when it collided with a broken down tanker conveying diesel oil.
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By SAM ANOKAMFriday, April 3, 2009•DeleAbiodunPhoto: Sun News PublishingThe last may not have been heard on the court ruling a fortnightago, declaring Admiral Dele Abiodun president of the PerformingMusician of Nigeria (PMAN). Immediately after the ruling,his opponent and incumbent PMAN president, Tee Mac Itselisaid he would appeal against the judgment based on reasonshe highlighted at a press conference he earlier adressed.Meanwhile, Daily Sun learnt from Teemac who confirmed theappeal, saying that there was a pending court case beforethe judgment was delivered.He said he can not immediatelyvacate office as his own executive has decided to appeal againstthe judgement.Meanwhile, Abiodun spoke extensively to Daily Sun, narratingwhat went wrong and the way forward among other issues.The way forwardHonestly, I am a lover of peace. Throughout my career, I havenever been a violent person and nobody could come out andsay that I have exchanged blows with him or her before.The way forward in PMAN is that I want to address my membersnow, there is no victor, no vanquished. We should come inwith that spirit because as a leader of men one should havehonour and integrity. I am telling my fellow musicians overthere on the other camp to come and join me. There is no roomfor intimidation or distraction.We don’t have time to start apportioning blames becausewe have a lot of work to do. PMAN is now grounded to zero.We need to move fast so that we are not left behind in thescheme of things. If it is about ego, whoever has it shouldgo and drop it. I beg them in the spirit of music becauseif you don’t drop that ego, there is no way we wouldmove forward. This is the time for us to begin to have somestructures on ground. My mission is to leave a legacy thatcannot be eroded, that is what I want to do and that is theway forward.Interpretation of court’s rulingIt is not for you and I as laymen to interpret the court’sruling. My opponents have a lawyer, just as we too have ourown. They should go to appeal court and argue that. But whyis it that it was after the judgment was delivered that someonethought of raising many allegations? Who will listen to youbecause you have a lawyer that has been on this case for threeand a half years.What has been his job? Why are they paying him? The only thingI saw there is that he tried to delay this case by using alltactics. You took me to court and you are writing lettersfor excuses that you would not be coming to court.This is all about the law. It is not about propaganda, ithas nothing to do with it. All I know is that a judgment hasbeen given. If any question is going to be asked on this,it should be directed to the lawyers and better still, theycan go to appeal court or we could decide to reconcile.SecretariatWe are in a democracy, if my opponents want to appeal, theycan go ahead and do that. As for the secretariat, when weget to the bridge, we would cross it.The other day we went there and they said we came there toexecute court order on our own which to me was right. Butthen so if they said so, that we were wrong, we accepted wewent wrong, so we withdrew. After this, I don’t knowwhat would happen. All I know is that we have a judgementin our favour and the law would take its course.It is not about me, it is about the union, the musician andthe industry.PMAN ConstitutionWe would start with a big step by reversing the constitutionto the old format. What they are supposed to do is not whatthey did. What they did was to satisfy somebody. I can’timagine somebody calling himself a governor, senator whenin the constitution you have chairmen of state chapters, ex-officiomembers, treasurers, first and second vice presidents as wellas the president. I have never seen a portion in that constitutionwhere anybody is being referred to as an ambassador. Thatmeans that someone tinkered with the constitution to pleasehimself and cause chaos in this union. It is too bad.Tee Mac and PMANTee Mac is a musician and a flutist and I am a singer andguitarist. If it is legal the law will tell and if it is notlegal the law will also tell us. Tee Mac should be very carefulbefore he sends himself to jail. Whatever action he takesafter this date honestly is contemptuous. I am not a lawyerbut I know that as a layman that if you go contrary to whatthe court has said, you are committing contempt of court andby so doing, it is also tantamount to impersonation.SuspensionThe constitution of PMAN says, if you are calling for an emergencyNEC meeting, written and printed, you needed not less thanfour people to sign and it did not even say officials, itsaid members. The letters they wrote to all the state chapterswas signed by just three people as ignorant as they were.That would tell you that they have not acted according theconstitution one day. Charley Boy Oputa, Orits Wiliki andBaby Barrister signed the letter and they sent it to all thestate chapters. We saw it and we picked it up. So it has beenpart of our evidences in court. Why would you now tell peoplethat somebody was suspended when he knew that whatever hedid then was illegal?.What went wrong?Sometimes ago, we initiated a peace move at a hotel closeto my house. I don’t want meetings to hold any longerin my house because I want to be neutral so tomorrow I wouldbe free to talk. We sat down there, Tee Mac, Mike Pam, Zimakoy,myself as well as others. We now said if we wanted peace,we should work out the modalities but we got to a dead end.We decided to bring two people each from the two camps, letthem continue to meet to sort out grey areas so that theyreport back to their principals - TeeMac and myself. You cansee how sincere I was.They started holding meetings, one two, three four up to fivemeetings, the next thing I heard was that on Tuesday, therewould be a press conference. You are holding meetings, wehave not finalized and the two principals have not met withthe peace committee members, then the next thing was to summonus, sit across the table and tell us what you have arrivedat so that we can agree. We can now say let us put hand onpaper for a Memorandum Of Understanding. If we signed that,and you asked me what we agreed on, I would then be able toshow the paper we signed on.But, I would not be stupid before the press, my followers,my family members and the public to sign what we haven’tboth agreed upon. The press conference should be the lastthing but they the cat before the horse. When they decidedthey must go ahead with that press conference, somebody saidit doesn’t matter if we didn’t sign the MOU now,it would be signed later. I then sent text messages to journaliststhat I was not against any peace initiative but that I willnot be part of a press conference that did not agree on anything,that I didn’t have anything to hold on to, they justwanted me to show my face, hug Charley Boy and hug everybody.
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