LONDON – Executive Director, African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), Rev. David Ugolor, who is currently studying at the Sussex University, United Kingdom, has debunked the statement credited to Mrs. Funke Oyerinde, widow of the late Comrade Olaitan Oyerinde claiming that Ugolor was in custody of documents of the late husband’s property in GRA, Benin City.
Oyerinde’s wife, Funke, had at an event to mark the third year anniversary of her husband’s murder in Benin City yesterday, stated that Ugolor was in custody of the documents of her late husband’s property.
In a swift reaction, yesterday, Rev. David Ugolor in a release, from Sussex in London, mailed to The NIGERIAN OBSERVER stated: “My attention has been drawn to a spurious statement made by the widow of my late friend, Mrs. Funke Oyerinde, who at an event to mark the third year anniversary of her husband’s murder alleged that I am in custody of documents of the late husband’s property … I want to put it on record that I am not in custody of any document of any landed property belonging to late Comrade Olaitan Oyerinde.
According to Rev. Ugolor, “All I know is that Comrade Olaitan came to my house and liked what he saw and appealed that since he was a busy man, I should assist him in supervising the building of his only house in the GRA area of Benin. As a close friend, I obliged him and used even materials from my home and spent about three million naira of my own, in building the said house for Comrade Olaitan.
Ugolor further stated that he even mailed all he had done about the building to the late Comrade Olaitan and copied his Co-in-law who was privy to what he was doing for Olaitan.
Ugolor who regretted that the late Olaitan could not effect reimbursement of the expenses he incurred before his murder said the only document in his possession relating to the property in question was an “excel shet” where the said amount he is owed was properly documented, saying “So, if anybody on earth needed Olaitan to be alive, I am the one”.
On why the alarm raised by Mrs. Oyerinde was unnecessary, Ugolor said, “Funke Oyerinde’s in-law is still alive to testify to my correspondence to Comrade Olaitan. The man who sold the land to Olaitan where the House was built is still alive and can attest to the fact that he sold the land to Olaitan. The building is there in GRA and has not been removed by anyone neither is the ownership in contention.”
While saying he sensed mischief, Ugolor asserted: “I had attributed her mischievous actions to the shock which she suffered, but her comments in almost all activities of burial or memorial of my late friend suggest to me that his widow may have worked behind the scene for my failed frame-up by the Nigeria Police Force led by M.D. Abubakar.
“I am also not unaware of a number of behind-the-scene smear campaigns she has been sponsoring all geared towards dragging my hard-earned image in the mud. But I leave all to God who knows all things … The family should look elsewhere for the documents and leave me out of the search, if they have not found them all these while”, Ugolor pleaded.
Rev. David Ugolor
