SSS arrests Ogun Chief of Staff

Yinka Olukoya, Abeokuta - 06.07.2008

Speaker of the Ogun State House of Assembly, Hon. Tunji Egbetokun on Saturday alleged that the Chief of Staff to the Governor, Chief Yomi Majekodunmi, led some hoodlums to his official quarters to kill him.

Already, the Chief of Staff and the suspected hoodlums have been arrested by men of the State Security Service SSS and caught with three rifles.

But the State government, in a swift reaction, through the Deputy Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Segun Sowunmi, said that the State Governor was totally unaware of the development. Speaking with newsmen in his house , Hon Egbetokun said that the Chief of Staff said that he wanted to speak with him one on one and he then invited him to his official quarters.

Egbetokun stated that “before the Chief of Staff came, he received another call from a Speacial Adviser to the Governor, Mr. Yemi Sodimu, who he said was harrasing him on phone for failing to attend a meeting called earlier in the day by the Governor and for sending a text message to the Governor.

On arrival of the Chief of Staff to his residence, he said that he invited him to his bedroom and was talking with him ,when one of of his [Speaker's] aides noticed that one of the people who came with the Chief of Staff opened the booth of the car and was bringing out a rifle and was subsequently arrested.

"While that was going on, he stated that a call came in that some people, who came in a Station Wagon with Registration OG 386 A01 had been caught within the assembly quarters, and that two new rifles were found with them.

“The SSS then went there and arrested them with the guns and they were taken away to their office with the Chief of Staff. I don’t know what they are trying to cover, that they want to kill me. I told the Chief of Staff that Obasanjo used three Speakers, more than three Senate Presidents, why are you bothered that we have changed our Speaker”.?

Egbetokun, who was surrounded by other members of the House, before the SSS operatives, said that he had no reason to fear and wondered why he would be a target of attack when they were all members of the same party.

Sources within government circles in Ogun state, last night, alleged that the Chief of Staff walked into a set-up. Sunday Tribune sources indicated that the allegation against the Chief of staff was a reaction to the incident which had earlier happened in Abeokuta, involving Honourable Bode Mustapha who was said to have escaped assassination attempt last Friday night. Hon. Mustapha was said not to have been at home when the alleged assassins visited.