Nigerian Former Attorney-General Bola Ige’s Daughter Recounts Having Premonition About Dad’s Assassination In 2001

Funsho Adegbola has recounted the harrowing events surrounding the assassination of her father, Chief Bola Ige, Nigeria’s former Minister of Justice and Attorney General, who was murdered at his Ibadan residence on December 23, 2001.

In an emotional interview on State Affairs with ace broadcaster, Edmund Obilo, Adegbola shared her haunting premonitions.

“I dreamt I was mourning, dressed in black,” she revealed. Troubled, she confided in her father, who replied, “Nobody can kill me; my life is in God’s hands.”

She recounted an incident at the late Ooni of Ife’s palace, where Ige’s cap was mysteriously removed during a ceremony. “He told me, ‘In my entire political life, nobody has ever removed my cap.’”

Adegbola described her father’s simplicity. “As Minister of Power and Steel, he returned 16 official cars, saying, ‘I can’t maintain more than two cars.’”

She also revealed his basic security setup. “Kema Chikwe was shocked to see our doors were ordinary carpentry wooden doors.”

Despite threats, Ige remained spiritually steadfast. “I told him, ‘Daddy, it appears they will do something to you.’ He replied, ‘I am surrounded by the White Light of Christ through which nothing evil can penetrate.’”

Adegbola linked the threats to political tensions involving Iyiola Omisore, then Deputy Governor of Osun State.

“There were political uprisings in Osun State then, and tensions were high,” she said.

The inability to secure justice for Ige’s murder devastated the family.

“It was a cruel irony that broke her spirit,” Adegbola said of her mother, a Justice of the Court of Appeal.

In her memoir, He Gave Me Wings, Adegbola emphasised Ige’s legacy of integrity. “My father always believed, ‘Anything worth living for is worth dying for.’”

She concluded, “His life serves as a powerful example of leadership, even as the pursuit of justice for his death remains an elusive goal.”