Date Published: 01/28/10

26 th January 2010.

Press Release.

Lagos AC Mourns Dipo Dina, calls that his Killers must be Found.

The Lagos State chapter of the AC has expressed shock and dismay on the brutal assassination of the AC governorship candidate in the 2007 election, Otunba Dipo Dina by unknown gun men. The party says that the murder of this young, dynamic, quiet and very active man pains it, hurts deep into its heart and diminishes all of us as human beings.

In a release in Lagos signed by the Lagos State Publicity Secretary of the AC, Joe Igbokwe, the party described the killing of Dina as one assassination too many while expressing the fear that the killers may not be found. It bemoans the fact that Ogun State has been in the news for the wrong reasons these past eight years of imposed desperate and reckless rulership and bemoaned the fact that such a vibrant patriot as Dipo Dina has been added to the rising sacrificial list in Ogun State.

“Otunba Dipo Dina fought for the democracy we have in place today even when most of the characters that are now defacing this democracy in the name of rulership were hobnobbing and winning and dinning with the military. He was a lodestar in the gritty fight against the military and was a principal member of NADECO when the impostors that have seized our democracy and made it such a nightmare for other Nigerians were hobnobbing and abetting tyrannical rule. We cannot but be sad that this fine soul and this valiant defender of democracy had been brutally hacked down in a democracy that had been mishandled by fiends and ghouls to become a national bloodbath.

“At this sad and gloomy day in our country, we recall that so many men and women in this country have had their bloodshed in what should be civil or democratic rule in manners that are political and that   their killers have been allowed to melt into thin air. We recall the dastardly killing of Chief Bola Ige, Funso Williams, Dr. Daramola, Alhaji Hassan Olajoku, Ogbonnaya Uche, Harry Marshal, Godwin Agbroko, Bayo Ohu, Abayomi Ogundeji, A.K Dikkibo, just to mention a few among a lengthening list of victims of what Prof. Wole Soyinka terms a nest of killers holding this country to ransom. It is very frightening that this list continues to rise and the government appears helpless to deal with these killings.

“Lagos AC wants to equally point to the fact that a reign of fear and terror pervades Ogun State today in a manner that had not been known in the history of the state. We want to state that this is a culmination of a desperate build up since 2003 when Ogun State was stolen into a do-or-die political culture that needs the unleashing of fear, killings, force and intimidation to sustain. We warn that this darkening culture of fear and persecution will claim more victims as the state is awash with allegations of state-sponsored persecution.

“We call on the Inspector General of Police to ensure that this case is not treated with the usual kid’s glove and go deep to unravel the killers of Otunba Dina and bring them to justice. We want the police and other law enforcement agents to dig deep and unmask the nest of killers that have made brutal assassination their enduring tactics. The police must dislodge the gathering group killers in Ogun State, which had made the state a hotspot in recent times and a theater of unending conflict and life-threatening political contentions that were alien to the state before the brutal imposition of 2003. We pray the good Lord to grant the valiant soul of Otunba Dina his deserved rest.”

Joe Igbokwe.

Publicity Secretary,

Lagos AC.