Tuesday, May 7, 2024

Sanyaolu Juwon

Labour Party And The Future Of Radical Politics In Nigeria

Sanyaolu Juwon
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Labour Party And The Future Of Radical Politics In Nigeria

Needless to say, the 2023 elections happened amid overwhelming disillusionment with the system and popular discontent with the major establishment political parties—the ruling All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party.

This mass disillusionment peaked with the resurgence of the secessionist movements, which resonated with a very significant base in the southeast and southwest regions of Nigeria. It also coincided with the RevolutionNow campaign, which swept across 24 states of the federation. Google recorded that on August 5, 2019, no less than 5 million Nigerians searched the internet for the meaning of “revolution.” The endSARS revolt in October 2020, largely staged by young people who subsequently suffered bloody repression, was the last straw that broke the Camel’s back.

The 2023 general elections will later come to manifest these discontentments in the form of increased politicization of young people; a significant portion of these later described themselves as Obidients.

Having been lured into the candidacy of a former Anambra state governor, Peter Obi, by the so-called “more progressive layer” of the elites, what followed was a process of de-radicalization of a radical mood that had great revolutionary potential. This process continued on a rather exponential scale when Peter Obi, a billionaire, adopted the platform of the Labour Party after losing out to the People’s Democratic Party, where he had spent a whopping sum of 140 million naira purchasing the presidential nomination form.

After securing the presidential ticket of the Labour Party after he had paid 30 million naira as the cost of the nomination form, he became the nominal candidate of the trade unions, their allies – layers of the civil society movements, and many change-seeking elements.

Despite contesting on the platform that was established by workers and endorsed by the trade unions, Peter Obi clung to his neoliberal agenda. His campaign heavily emphasized the removal of oil subsidies, complete deregulation of the oil sector, and policies of privatization and commercialization. However, he showed no commitment to ensuring decent wages for workers or ending the neoliberal assault on public education, an issue of great importance to his youthful base, many of whom hail from working-class backgrounds. Unfortunately, the trade unions remained silent, turning a blind eye to his vigorously anti-worker policies as he campaigned.

The silence of the trade unions was so loud that Festus Keyamo, a serving minister under the immediate past president, Muhammadu Buhari, challenged why the unions kept quiet over the campaign rhetoric of Peter Obi, calling for the removal of fuel subsidy, and total deregulation of the oil sector after fighting successive governments that had tried to do the same thing. In light of the foregoing, many have asked if the Labour Party can indeed serve as the vehicle for the liberation of the working people of Nigeria.

Whereas, the fate of the Labour Party was sealed at birth as reactionary at the conference of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) held at Calabar and Lagos in 1989, which founded the party on petite bourgeois ideas and not the core values that had been associated with the Nigeria Labour Congress in the mid-80s: socialism, anti-imperialism, anti-privatization, national sovereignty, and a commitment to a national economy whose commanding heights are under state and popular control. This is largely because by 1989, a different generation of trade union leaders like Pascal Bafyau had dispensed with these values after the Babangida administration moved against the NLC, harassed, intimidated, and subsequently purged out radical elements from the union.

While the Labour Party’s revolutionary potential was greatly undermined at its 1989 founding conference, the conference of the NLC and TUC held in September 2002 did nothing to address the ideological challenges of the party. It was at this conference that the party was renamed and officially registered as the “Party for Social Democracy.”

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the “Party for Social Democracy” and the Trade Unions maintained a detached and quiet stance while radical parties like Gani Fawehinmi’s National Conscience Party, Democratic Alternative, and the People’s Redemption Party battled the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to expand the political space for party registration. Notably, the “Party for Social Democracy” later rebranded itself as the Labour Party at its inaugural Congress in 2004. Since then, however, the Labour Party has failed to support or advocate for the Nigerian people, instead devolving into a purely electoral vehicle that includes elements of the ruling class that the established ruling class parties, such as the PDP and the APC, left out.

It is for this reason that figures like Olusegun Mimiko and Dele Momodu were able to run under the Labour Party. Olusegun Mimiko served as governor under the Labour Party in 2009, overseeing a neoliberal economy for two terms. He later returned to the PDP in the later part of his second term as governor. The party also provided support to President Jonathan in 2015 by endorsing his bid for a second term, and in 2019, it rendered similar services to President Buhari by endorsing his aspiration for a second term in office.

In the early months of 2022, the leadership of the two Labour centers held separate conferences where, in each case, both unions reasserted ownership and membership of the Labour Party. Unfortunately, these were just words. The leadership of the trade unions did nothing to mobilize their members into the party. Many of them, like the state councils of the NLC and TUC in Lagos, mobilized support for the ruling parties. Sadly, this has been the attitude of the trade unions toward the Labour Party since 2004—abandoning the party to the whims and caprices of establishment politicians. It is no wonder the nomination form of the so-called workers’ party sells for as much as 30 million naira. The implication of this is that only establishment politicians can run under the party, not workers. Moves like this consolidate the hold of establishment politicians on the party, effectively closing off any possibility of revolutionary working-class-based politicking.

Today, the Labour Party has become a political platform that loudly re-echoes neoliberal and IMF policies far above those of established bourgeoisie parties like the ruling All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party. The Labour Party, through Peter Obi and its Obidient base, amplified policies of subsidy removal and many neoliberal reforms that President Tinubu has implemented over the past six months.

The Labour Party today boasts thirty-five members in the House of Representatives and eight in the Senate. None have spoken in support of the Nigerian people; rather, they simply joined their colleagues in the national assembly, endorsing Tinubu’s wasteful use of taxpayers’ money, plundering public wealth, offering support for the regime’s neoliberal programs, including the removal of fuel subsidy, and renewed attacks on public education.

In addition, the Labour Party and its Obidient base had spent the last year demobilizing every attempt at mobilizing mass resistance against the neoliberal programs of the All Progressives Congress. Near the end of 2022, towards the general elections, it supported the Naira redesign policy, which imposed unfathomable hardship on ordinary people occasioned by the artificial scarcity of cash.

After Bola Tinubu was returned as President of Nigeria through a shabbily conducted (s)election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Labor Party and its Obidient base actively demobilized mass resistance against fuel subsidy removal, wave of fee hikes, and many other neoliberal programs of the government of Tinubu. It embarked on a massive social media campaign targeted at de-radicalizing and demobilizing young people from taking street actions and subsequently encouraged them to focus instead on reclaiming Peter Obi’s mandate at the election tribunal.

As to the immediate and direct question of how to engage with the Labour Party as presently constituted, there are two divergent views within the broad Labour Movement. Some believe the Labour Party can still be rescued from the tight grip of powerful neoliberal and anti-worker interests.

However, their experiences, like those of many revolutionary activists who have made similar efforts over the last 20 years, have been like that of a man trying to flog a dead horse back to life. Many of these people, especially radicals, soon came back with disappointments after they were purged out and isolated when Peter Obi and his Obidient Movement took over the party. Ayo Ademiluyi, a socialist who had been given a House of Representatives ticket to represent the Eti Osa constituency in Lagos, was dispossessed of his ticket, and the ticket was handed over to a different candidate who had not participated in the primaries but had been committed to the neoliberal interests in the party.

The Lagos State Chairperson, who had been sympathetic towards left-leaning elements, was also removed abruptly. It was this coup at the center that made it easy to purge and isolate socialists and radicals within the party, the bulk of whom were organized in Lagos.

Sowore Addressing the people Of Akure in a town hall
Omoyele Sowore addressed supporters at a December 2023 town hall engagement in Akure. Credit: Rock

Since the Benin Declaration in 2002, which finally sealed the fate of the Labour Party and ultimately beheaded its revolutionary potential, various civil society elements of the broader Labour Movement have floated political parties, espousing ideas that were synonymous with the core values of the Nigerian Labour Congress of the mid-80s. These efforts, like the National Conscience Party in 2003 and the Socialist Party of Nigeria floated by the Democratic Socialist Movement, had mimicked past initiatives like those of the Socialist Workers and Farmers Party and the Socialist Working People’s Party. The most recent of these efforts, and perhaps the most impactful, is the establishment of the African Action Congress (AAC) by the Take It Back Movement and leading revolutionary activist Omoyele Sowore, who ran under the platform as President in 2019 and 2023 respectively, campaigning strictly on revolutionary programs. Like the past endeavors, this too was not sufficient to dislodge the hegemony of Nigeria’s rapacious ruling class.

But the fact remains that the Labour Movement, workers, and change-seeking elements should and must be organized under one political party. Such a political party must be unequivocally committed to the core values that the Nigerian workers and the Labour Movement had previously sworn to socialism, anti-imperialism, anti-privatization, national sovereignty, internal democracy, and commitment to a national economy that is under democratic and popular control. The party must be rooted within the rank and file of workers, ordinary Nigerians, communities, workplaces, and campuses. If the oppressed and working people of Nigeria must look up to the trade unions to lead this initiative, then the trade unions must be made to recommit themselves to the values of the Nigerian Labour Congress as they were in the mid-80s.

How The Lagos State Government Demolished Houses Of Low-Income Earners In Mosafejo-Oworonshoki, Forced Over Seven Thousand People Into Homelessness

Sanyaolu Juwon
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How The Lagos State Government Demolished Houses Of Low-Income Earners In Mosafejo-Oworonshoki, Forced Over Seven Thousand People Into Homelessness

In a sudden turn of events, piles of wreckage became the only remnants of what used to be homes to over 7,000 people, women, and children. Places of worship, churches, mosques, including schools, and businesses were not spared.

After the state government unexpectedly carried out repeated building demolitions in June without prior notice, the residents of Mosafejo-Oworonshoki, a low-income residential community, were forcibly displaced and left to endure immense hardship.

Oworonshoki, located in the Kosofe region of Lagos in southwest Nigeria, predominantly consists of low-income residential properties and is home to over 170,000 people.

Over the past two decades, the Lagos government has torn down various shanties located near the lagoon in order to make space for the rich to construct lavish residences. Low-income communities in Otodogbame, Ilubirin, and Makoko had been earlier victims. However, poor residents of Mosafejo-Oworonshoki became the newest victims of the prevalent forced evictions in Lagos.

Worthy of note is that the affected communities neither received warnings nor prior notice from any government ministry pre-informing them of a possible demolition or that their houses were erected on illegal sites. Many of these people had been residing in these communities for more than four decades.

Since the unfortunate incident occurred, many residents have been forced to live in open shelters and makeshift accommodations, leaving them at the mercy of dangerous animals, harsh weather conditions, and death. No less than five infant deaths have been recorded. Women and girls forced to live under these abject conditions do so at the risk of physical attacks, abuse, and rape.

Picture of demolished site at the Mosafejo-Oworonshoki community
The demolished low-income community in Mosafejo-Oworonshoki, Lagos. Credit: Durotimi Dawodu

Needless to say, the provision of security, welfare, and shelter is integral to the fundamental aims and objectives of government. For many years now, the Lagos State government has failed woefully to meet these objectives.

According to a report by Business Day newspaper, Lagos accounts for about 5 million out of a total of 18 million housing deficits in Nigeria. This implies that the so-called commercial center of the country accounts for more than 31% of the total housing deficit in the country. Rather than increasing the already embarrassing statistics of homelessness in the state through thoughtless demolitions, the state should be massively investing in low-cost housing projects.

Unfortunately, the regime is deliberately throwing more than seven thousand of its citizens to the street at a time the country is grappling with an unprecedented level of hardship occasioned by the astronomical increase in the price of energy, including fuel and gas.

The inflation rate is at over 27%, and the cost of food and commodities has increased astronomically, with a wave of fee hikes hitting our various tertiary institutions, forcing thousands of young people out of school. These challenges in themselves are more than bad, as they have forced millions of Nigerians out of social existence; forcing them out of their houses into the streets should not be the priority of the government.

Notably, the affected communities and civil society organizations have organized campaigns and protest actions, calling on the Babajide Sanwoolu-led government to put an end to the ongoing demolition exercise and award compensations, including resettlement of the thousands that have been unjustly displaced, made homeless, and without property. This sharp reaction from the people is apt and must be widely supported by people of good conscience.

We refuse to be the lamb that is sacrificed on the altar of the insatiable greed of an elite minority.

Tinubu’s Inauguration: End Of An Error, The Dawn Of Calamity

Sanyaolu Juwon
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Tinubu’s Inauguration: End Of An Error, The Dawn Of Calamity

“I am confident that I am leaving office with Nigeria better in 2023 than in 2015.” President Buhari ended his farewell speech with this remark on the 28th of May, 2023. Some of us could not help but wonder if perhaps we had been living in an alternate universe for the past eight years. Not surprisingly, the former president supported this fallacious vituperation with a body of argument that attempted to whitewash the disturbing and horrible fact that the Buhari regime is an epic fail; incompetent, despotic, lawless, and very anti-poor.

Many parts of the speech were fraught with boastful remarks, and needless self-adulation that misrepresented many unpalatable facts about the horrible administration. But one of his many lies that particularly stood out was the part that read “to ensure that our democracy remains resilient and our elected representatives remain accountable to the people, I am leaving behind an electoral process which guarantees that votes count, results are credible, elections are fair and transparent and the influence of money in politics reduced to the barest minimum. And Nigerians can elect leaders of their choice.” Former President Buhari better not be speaking about the 2023 elections especially — the same election that was fraught with massive vote buying, voter suppression, violence, result falsification, and mass disenfranchisement. Polling units became transactional centers and a theatre of war. Punch newspaper in fact dismissed the 2023 election as a show of shame, concluding that Buhari and INEC brought nothing other than disgrace and embarrassment to Nigeria with such an unfortunate sham.

How can the former president claim that he left Nigeria better than he met it in 2015 when evidence abound suggest otherwise? According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the unemployment rate in the second quarter of 2015 when Buhari took over was at 14.9 percent, representing a population of 6.1 million people who were without jobs. Sadly in 2023, the unemployment rate peaked at 33.3 percent representing about 23 million people, the highest in thirteen years. This is almost four times higher than what it was before Buhari took over.

In addition to leaving behind a country that now ranks as the poverty capital of the world, the administration left behind a huge population of over 133 million people who statistics show are living in multidimensional poverty.

Whereas in 2015 when Buhari assumed office, the inflation rate was at 9 percent. Fast forward to 2023, the regime is leaving behind a very high inflation rate at 22.22 percent, and a debt profile of 77 trillion naira: a very significant and highly exponential increase from its initial value of 12.22 trillion naira in 2015. It is unfortunate that Nigerians have nothing to show for the borrowing spree the regime embarked upon — no schools, hospitals, or any meaningful infrastructural development that may justify the humongous debt burden.

Needless to say, the problem of insecurity also worsened under the past administration. It is on record that the Buhari campaign in 2015 had been very vocal about ending insecurity and bloodletting that had taken the lives of about 18,260 Nigerians, and also displaced many more. Sadly, the Buhari regime worsened the situation. More than 53,000 Nigerians had been gruesomely murdered by bandits, killer herdsmen, and Boko Haram insurgents between 2015 when Buhari took power, and October 2022. This is in addition to numerous others that have become IDPs. States like Kaduna, Zamfara, Borno, Benue, and Plateau states became killing fields for bandits, killer herdsmen, and numerous insurgents; hunting their victims like games, kidnapping many more.

In addition to the utter lack of respect for the judiciary, and serial violation of court orders, Buhari also presided over a country where the armed forces, police especially act with impunity, lawlessness, and are responsible for many extrajudicial murders. It was indeed an administration that from its first tenure had expunged the concept of human rights from its dictionary of governance.

No doubt, the previous administration was not only incompetent, inefficient, and anti-poor, but also it was a government that left behind a tragic legacy of sorrow, tears, and blood.

As though determined to commit the people of Nigeria to eternal damnation, Buhari, and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), superintended over a very shabby and highly fraudulent electoral process that imposed one of the worst political characters in Nigeria’s history — Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Unlike most candidates in the race, Tinubu in the course of his campaign said very few words and made limited promises to electorates. He had relied largely on vote buying, intimidation, voter suppression, hooliganism, violence, and his vast access to state institutions to manipulate electoral outcomes right from the polling units.

Bola Tinubu despite making little or no campaign promises was however very clear and loud about his plans to attack the welfare and livelihood of his electorates once he emerges.

Tinubu’s declaration of war and hardship against the Nigerian people didn’t happen on May 29, 2023, the date of inauguration. He didn’t do anything that he had not said to our faces during the course of his campaign. The man dared us to our faces, and boldly said during campaigns that he would remove fuel subsidy, and that not even our protests will change this. And with a kind of courage that derives unusual confidence from impunity, he declared his victory before the date of the election.

With the above, it is crystal clear that the Bola Tinubu Presidency is coming with planned and premeditated attacks against the Nigerian people. Removing fuel subsidy is only the beginning, the coming days will not be any easier. Tinubu’s inaugural speech was very clear on this. And just like he bullied his way to power, the president’s major strategy will be to bully the entire country into total submission.

Although Buhari may have come off as the worst in Nigeria’s history, Tinubu’s May 29 inaugural speech however gave us an unforgettable omen. The sufferings endured under Buhari’s eight years of horrific rule might be nothing compared to the challenges ahead.

The government of Tinubu has openly declared itself to be a regime of bullies. Less than one hour in office, it has taken decisive action to attack the living conditions of Nigerians majority of whom are living in multidimensional poverty. The regime had by its action declared war on the Nigerian people. Fighting back remains the only decision available to the millions of poor and suffering majority who will be victims of these attacks.

2023 Elections: A Street Robbery

Sanyaolu Juwon
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2023 Elections: A Street Robbery

If you can relate with the kind of mood you’d meet when on a visit to a street that had just experienced a robbery of a very violent dimension, then you may be able to connect with the atmosphere of gloom that descended on the country at the pronouncement of Mr. Bola Tinubu as (s)elected president of the country. The Nigerian people felt cheated, and robbed.

But needless to say, the street was indeed robbed — it was violently dispossessed of its hard-earned democratic right to choose for itself, a leader: votes were stolen at polling units and collation centers, ballot boxes were snatched, voters were intimidated, electorates and electoral officials were bought, the polling units did not only become a theater of war, it was equally drowned in blood: votes generally did not count. The street had been robbed of the right to free and fair elections.

The 2023 elections were no doubt the usual tales of sorrow, tears, and blood: the sad triumph of impunity and money politics over the democratic will of over 200 million people.

Whereas voters turnout at every election cycle since 2003 has decreased progressively, the recent polls had an unprecedented number of first-time voters who are largely very young people — those you will categorize as the children of Democracy aka Gen Zs. It was a generation that had been forged in the furnace of one of the biggest youth rebellions in recent history: the EndSARS rebellion.

Sadly, the EndSARS generation may be the last generation of Nigerians who will hold any manner of confidence in Nigeria’s electoral system due to the inability of the electoral umpire to manage the high expectations ignorantly reposed on it by the millions of this young, and highly enthusiastic voters. Whatsoever illusions anyone may have left in Nigeria’s so-called democracy, the charade conducted in 2023 may have successfully shattered such illusions.

While Bola Tinubu’s party, the ruling APC used money, and all instrumentalities of the state to suppress voters, and steal votes, the so-called front-runners — Atiku Abubakar’s PDP, and Peter Obi’s Labour Party weren’t any different. The duo equally stole votes, and repressed voters at their respective strongholds. Sadly, this is how Nigeria’s ruling class have conducted themselves every election year. This accounts for the steady decline of voter turnout at every election cycle. The loss of confidence in the system continues to increase exponentially.

At the just concluded Presidential polls, only 27% of the over 87 million eligible voters — voters with PVCs, turned out to vote. Also instructive is the fact that the supposed winner of the (s)election, Bola Tinubu, was able to secure only about 8.2 million votes, representing a very small percentage of 10.08% of the total number of eligible voters.

In all, a huge population of over 63.1 million eligible voters completely boycotted the elections. This is in addition to over 100 million Nigerians who did not even register to vote at all. Generally, Bola Tinubu’s government will be presiding over a country where over 170 million people have handed his administration a vote of no confidence even before it began.

And for such infamous administration starting off on a note of illegitimacy, and mass rejection even in the midst of daunting economic crises capable of pitching even a relatively popular Government against its people, he will in the coming period be left with the option of two extreme choices if he must hold onto his Government which by the way may have failed even before it began: an option of granting huge political and economic concession to the already discontented and disillusioned majority, or the use of brute force to suppress dissent and keep his unpopular regime in power. This in fact is the fate that awaits any government that emerges from the 2023 charade. For Bola Tinubu of the APC, which will it be? Your guess is as good as mine.

The coming days will no doubt be challenging and highly tumultuous. As such, we must do away with all manner of needless divisive narratives targeted at dividing us along ethnic lines. It is in the interest of the ruling class of all political divides to keep us isolated from one another through religion and ethnicity. We must not allow for these distractions. Only as a united front can we pose a formidable challenge to the looming danger the Presidency of Bola Tinubu and APC represents to the ordinary and suffering people of Nigeria.

Students’ Loan: We Can’t Pay, We Won’t Pay

Sanyaolu Juwon
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Students’ Loan: We Can’t Pay, We Won’t Pay

On November 22nd, 2022, Nigeria’s 9th National Assembly successfully passed a Students’ Loan Bill, a move that has now incited reactions along varying interests and ideological lines. The bill, sponsored by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila purportedly seeks to ease access to public education by providing tuition loans to students whose family’s annual income is less than five hundred thousand naira – over 133 million Nigerians are in this category.

Students who are eligible for this tuition loan are expected to apply through their respective tertiary institutions, and the tuition will forthwith be paid directly into the account of the applicant’s institution of learning.

Beneficiaries of this student loan are expected to begin repayment two years after National Youth Service Corps.

While the speaker of the house had argued that the bill is in the interest of the students and the people of Nigeria, critical analysis of the loan bill reveals the contrary. Aside from the fact that experiences from other countries have persistently shown how a student loan program has turned out to be synonymous with offering a poisoned chalice to the “beneficiaries” of such a program, we also note that this bill is a deliberate ploy by the irresponsible Nigerian state to distract the public from the real issues of education underfunding.

Against the background of numerous attempt to institutionalize the commercialization of public education in Nigeria, the government in different instances have developed various initiatives targeted at placing the burden of education funding on the shoulders of Nigerian students and their poor parents. One of the most recent of such attempts is a Steve Oransaye Committee inaugurated in 2012 by the administration of former President, Goodluck Jonathan. The committee recommended the introduction of very high tuition to the tune of 450- 525 thousand naira in Nigerian tertiary institutions, starting with the first Generation Universities. The committee argued that tuition of such magnitude is a necessity if our universities must stand a chance to compete minimally with the rest of the world. In short, the committee’s recommendation was that government hands off education funding and allow students to bear the burden of the stupendous resources needed to fund tertiary education.

In 2014, it was reported that the Jonathan administration had issued a white paper on the report of this committee.

Upon emergence in 2015, the Buhari regime continued on these neoliberal foundations of the Jonathan administration by inaugurating a committee of 16 headed by the former University of Lagos Pro-Chancellor, Professor Wale Babalakin. This committee, like Oransaye, proposed an astronomical increment in tuition, this time to the tune of One million naira. In addition to very high tuition, Babalakin also argued for the establishment of an education bank that will grant loans to students for the purpose of paying for this high tuition. Commendably, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) rejected this recommendation, describing it as an attempt to hand over public universities to private interests.

Recall that in 2009, ASUU, again made a case for increased funding of public education starting with the immediate injection of 1.3 trillion naira into public Universities. It proposed in its 2009 agreement with the federal government that this funding should be paid to the universities in three tranches. It took the Union to go into another six months of strike action in 2013 to compel the government to release the first tranche of 220 billion naira in the latter part of 2014. This is close to five years since the agreement was signed.

Meanwhile, just two years before the 2009 agreement, the Nigerian government bailed out their friends in the banking system with a whopping sum of 3 trillion naira. The same government will later find it difficult to bail out public education with 1.3 trillion naira two years after.

No doubt, the Students’ Loan Bill represents the institutionalization of education commercialization with an overall aim to effectively consolidate an ongoing neoliberal siege against public education in Nigeria.

It is on record that in places like the United States of America, where this policy may have been adopted, beneficiaries of such loans spend their entire adult life repaying loans. In fact, President Obama couldn’t complete his repayment until he became America’s President. Millions of American citizens are living in heavy debt accrued from this sort of draconian policy. The implications in Nigeria are bound to be much worse.

In addition to the problem of mass unemployment and massive de-industrialization, Nigeria also struggles with increasing poverty with over 133 million Nigerians living in abject poverty.

Whereas the bill states that beneficiaries of this loan must begin repayment two years after completion of Youth Service, it fails to put into consideration the obvious reality that most Nigerian graduates are unable to find jobs years after leaving school. And those with the initiative to start small businesses aren’t availed with an enabling environment for a thriving business.

It is rather unfortunate that of many western education policies, Nigerian leaders have always opted for the ones that have proven to be a monumental disaster. It remains a wonder that they have chosen to ignore great examples of other Western countries like Germany, Switzerland, Finland, and many Scandinavian countries that have a culture of giving free and qualitative education to its citizens.

The problem we face isn’t the fact that the Nigerian state is incapable of funding free and qualitative education, it is that Nigerian leaders are unwilling to commit to massive investment into education. Monies that should have been committed to funding public education are either looted or committed to white elephant projects. It was in this same country that Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) were unable to account for a whopping sum of 1.2 trillion naira. We have seen how the accountant general of the federation stole 150 billion naira. These are just a few of many cases of mindless looting in the country. This is in addition to unremitted taxes from big corporations running to several billions of dollars.

While we continue to commend the education unions, especially the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) for rejecting this Greek gift, and insisting that the Nigerian government must abandon this distraction and genuinely commit to funding education, it becomes very imperative to call public attention to the urgency of resisting the cruel attempt to place an unfair burden of eternal debt on the strained shoulders of over 133 million poor Nigerians who already are finding it difficult to even afford to eat.

1984

Sanyaolu Juwon
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1984

Written by George Orwell in 1949, 1984 detailed the imperative of resisting oppression and tyranny, offering great insight into a twisted and very cruel future if nations are allowed to fall to the rule of totalitarianism.

The book helped put in proper perspective, how totalitarian regimes attempt to control our thoughts and lives through surveillance and by seizing control of the mass media, most times, violently. In this brilliantly articulated piece of work, we see a “party” that deploys enormous resources into eliminating dissent to the extent of establishing edicts that criminalize holding anti-government thoughts and opinions. Do these methods sound familiar to you? If so, then I welcome you dear reader to 1984

In an event described as the “Nigerian Drama” by The New York Times in 1984, the regime of Buhari, violating human rights and international laws, staged a kidnap of a former Minister of Transport, Umaru Dikko, after he was ambushed at his London base. This is the same junta that had just overthrown an elected government of Shagari under whom Dikko served as Minister.

IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu
Biafra agitator, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. Credit: MNK

Fast forward to 2021, close to four decades after, the same serial law offender staged a similar attack on Human Rights and International laws in the abduction of the IPOB leader and British Citizen, Nnamdi Kanu, in Kenya. This is after he returned in 2015 in a disguised democratic toga.

Shortly after the abduction of Kanu, barely 24 hours to a July 3rd protest declared by Yoruba secessionist group, the regime sent in masked DSS operatives after the Yoruba secessionist agitator and leader, Sunday Igboho, stormed his Ibadan residence at the dead of the night like armed assassins, arrested thirteen persons and in a public statement released by its PRO, Peter Afunnaya, boasted to have extra-judicially murdered two of Igboho’s allies.

Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Igboho
Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Igboho. Credit: Jide

On the day of the protest, however, the regime deployed combined forces of the police and military. The security forces shot violently and sporadically against the peaceful agitators and protesters, killing Jumoke, a 14-year-old female trader.

It should be recalled that as far back as 2015, there have been renewed calls for the secession of the Igbo people from Nigeria by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB. The secession campaigns attained a threshold of popularity upon the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu on the 20th of October, 2015. And as the agitation grew bigger and larger, no thanks to increasing insecurity and socio-economic injustice in the country that has pauperized millions of Nigerians and made the country totally unsafe for habitation. This is also complicated by the manner in which the government protects and funds terrorists and bandits while deploying enormous resources into hunting, arresting, and killing protesters and all who maintain dissent against the regime.

But the secessionists were not the only group or persons to fall victim to the tyranny and brazen human rights violations of the Buhari regime. Recall that on August 3rd, 2019, at about 1 AM, Omoyele Sowore, leading investigative journalist and revolutionary activist was abducted in the middle of the night by masked men of the DSS who stormed his Lagos temporary residence like assassins.

Revolutionary activist, Omoyele Sowore
RevolutionNow convener, Omoyele Sowore. Credit: Jide

For calling a RevolutionNow Protest against misgovernance and crass incompetence of the regime, Sowore spent five months in unjust detention after the regime violated two court orders for his release. Worst still, the regime in desperation to rearrest Sowore after it reluctantly obeyed the order to release the latter on bail, the DSS stormed the courtroom, violating the sanctity of the court right in front of the presiding judge who had to escape the violent scene instigated by the gun-wielding DSS operatives. The regime created an unfathomable precedent of judicial impunity when it turned Justice Ijeoma’s court into a war zone.

There is also El-Zakzaky whom the regime continues to hold hostage despite court orders that have mandated it to release him on bail. Aside from murdering his children extrajudicially, the regime has murdered scores of his followers for asking the government to comply with court orders granting bail to the Sheik.

The manner in which the regime drowned the endSARS protest in blood still remains very fresh in our memories. But the government did not stop at that, it went further to intimidating and arresting young persons who they perceive as conspicuous during the two weeks of youth uprising.

The regime for the past six years of administration had equally devoted time to arresting, intimidating, and harassing journalists. According to media reports, no less than eight journalists have been killed on duty under the regime with over 500 falling victims to harassment, intimidation, torture, and unjust detentions. Today, it has become a norm to see journalists who have come to cover protests dressed in bulletproofs as though covering a war zone. No doubt, the regime had turned protest grounds into a theatre of war.

When the regime appeared not to be satisfied with simply attacking and gagging the press, it went straight for the social media, prescribing death by hanging for “hate speech’’; a deliberate attempt to gag Nigerians and violate their constitutional right to free speech. The regime did not want a free press, it frowned against citizen’s right to free speech and protests. It does not want Nigerians to protest offline and also against them expressing their frustrations on social media, especially Twitter. It was this gross hostility to free speech that forced the regime into banning over 200 million Nigerians from using Twitter.

No regime in history, military and civilian, has treated the judiciary and the rule of law with such disdain and brazen impunity. No regime in the history of the country has been so hostile to its citizens without any modicum of regard for their lives or constitutional rights. No regime in history had ever treated the press and the Nigerian people with so much hate and utter contempt.

The only regime that ever measured close to Buhari’s despotism is the military junta of 1984; the only Junta to have ever dethroned an elected government. Buhari’s capacity for lawlessness and impunity is second to none, such that only Buhari could have surpassed the record of his own lawlessness over three decades after.

Buhari may not only be classified as a despot with the unique ability to harness the powers of Nigeria’s systemic impunity to muster a social, political, and economic siege against the Nigerian people, he is the only Nigerian leader fit to be described as a serial law offender, ever to occupy Nigeria’s political space.

The Dot Nation

Sanyaolu Juwon
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The Dot Nation

Several weeks back, Muhammadu Buhari in an Arise TV interview on the 11th of June, 2021, twenty-four hours before the commemoration of Democracy day, described an entire region in the country as “dot in a circle’’. This was days after he threatened to deal with the members of IPOB “in the language they understand’’. Instinctively and quite commendably, the Nigerian tweeps mobilized to report such wicked, unconscionable and thoughtless tweet that threatens genocide against a section of a country and a deliberate attempt to torment our memories with the ugly and horrific development of the Nigerian civil war; an event that has left unforgettable memories of sorrow, tears, and blood.

This is a government that rarely speaks to terrorists and bandits in the language they understand. On the contrary, it has continued to romance and reward them handsomely in ransoms, overseas scholarships, and social empowerment. But a government that begged bandits and terrorists with CBN loans a month before is shamelessly threatening genocide against a group of people agitating for self-determination and disdainfully described an entire region as “dot in a circle’’; a fascist statement that captures an intention and justification for genocide.

As is the character of Dictators, the regime reacted by suspending the use of Twitter in Nigeria. In order to massage its ego and desperate urge for impunity, the regime was willing to murder and completely bury the rights of its two hundred million citizens to social media rights, the same way it had consistently attacked all rights.

When it couldn’t achieve this with Twitter ban thanks to a generation that is not only defiant but also far above the regime’s backwardness, the government began seeking ways to negotiate with Twitter by using as a bargaining chip, millions of Nigerians who now have to rely on VPN to tweet. In the end, it was the Nigerian people that ended up suspending the regime from Twitter.

Although the “dot in the circle” statement as used by Buhari may have rightfully suggested a threat against agitation for self-determination, it also connotes a much deeper phenomenon upon paying close attention to the President’s interview, the disposition of the regime to other forms of rights and its general approach to governance.

What we see is a regime that has subjected free speech to persistent attacks, handled protests with utmost disdain and government critics have been treated far worse than terrorists. Everyone, groups, and ordinary Nigerians who oppose the regime’s anti-people policies have become victims of violent repression, incarceration and in some instances, extrajudicially murdered as in the case of endSARS and countless Shiite protesters whom the regime continues to kill like games.

The President in the Arise TV interview could not disguise his grudge and immense hatred for Nigerians, especially young people. You could see a President that was embittered when he said, “endSARS” protesters wanted to remove him. He made this statement as if to justify the Lekki massacre and the violent crackdown on the endSARS protest. Hence, the “dot in the circle” statement falls into a general pattern of a regime that has always handled dissent with state violence and is overtly hostile to democratic rights.

If anyone is still in doubt of the tribe Buhari’s ideology refers to as “dot in a circle”, then we need also to pay attention to how the government shot at protesters on democracy day, twenty-four hours after the Arise TV interview. The government on democracy day officially described Nigerians as terrorists by unleashing the counter-terrorism unit against protesters, who in turn, fired repeatedly at our Ojota protest ground.

Under Buhari’s regime, the “dot” people are the most endangered tribe in the entire country. They are the tribe whose social-economic, constitutional, and political rights are subjected to relentless attacks.

These are the tribes that were murdered in cold blood on October 20, 2020. This tribe is consistently murdered through overwhelming poverty, insecurity, lack of access to healthcare, housing, clean water, and basic welfare. This tribe does not only constitute a category of people demanding rights to self-determination, nor does it consist only of those being persecuted, arrested, shot at, brutalized, killed for fighting for socio-economic and political rights, the “dot” nation comprises also of all who are victims of government failings. This is the tribe of the 99% that has been subjected to years of neoliberal siege by a system of greed and power.

The Buhari administration has no doubt shown that it is hostile to all forms of rights. This is why it is important for the “dot” nation, organized across the length and breadth of the country, to unite in a struggle to put a permanent end to this regime of death and destruction.

Buhari’s Pantamism

Sanyaolu Juwon
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Buhari’s Pantamism

In Nigeria of today, under the clueless leadership of Buhari, Pantamism has come to join the ranks of notorious ”Isms” that deals particularly in the Affliction of the Nigerian people with the virulent disease of terrorism.

Just like how the regime deodorized corruption, Buhari’s recent endorsement of Pantami is nothing short of the institutionalization of terrorism and religious extremism. it translates to the legitimization of the ongoing terrorism in the north and unfair vilification of thousands of those who have fallen victim, some in fatal dimension, of religious extremism that has assumed the shape of insurgency.

Under Buhari’s regime, citizens are described as being anti-north simply for calling for the sack of a minister with concrete records of affiliation and support for Islamic terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda. Nigerians are regarded anti-Islam for calling for the need to protect the nation’s data from terrorists whom we can confirm have a sympathizer in a minister who handles the national data.

This government has not only justified our most ”esteemed” position as the third most terrorized country in the world; it has also assisted the narrative of ”fulanization” and ”Islamization” of Nigeria.

Meanwhile, this agenda in the real sense, have in the best scenario benefited elites of all ethnoreligious background, in a worse situation, profited their rich Muslim friends from across the North and South and in the worst circumstance, empowered their rich/powerful Northern cronies.

In the administration of Buhari, all government institutions have become institutions of terror against the Nigerian people.

Our security agencies terrorize and kill young people on daily basis, the ministry of Labor and employment terrorize workers in addition to being incapable of providing employment, the Ministry of power terrorizes the entire country with the darkness that is purchased at an expensive and unregulated rate.

The Ministry of housing terrorizes Nigerians with homelessness that has condemned millions of people to under-bridge settlers and street urchins that have now become child or teenage cultists and “hoodlums” that are available as government tools to foment election violence. 

The regime on a frequent basis dispenses policies of terror that have rendered the naira useless, sustained Nigeria as the poverty capital of the World, reduced our nation to a situation where the law courts are shut down for weeks over issues that border on financial autonomy and independence of the judiciary. It has descended the country to where we have now resorted to the printing of money as opposed to policies that mobilize social wealth.

With Buhari’s Pantamism, we have lost our country to the rule of bandits and terrorists. But these beastly insurgents are not only organized in bushes, they have a full presence and adequate representation in government offices and sectors. They have now become emboldened by government patronage and empowerment to advance their nefarious activities from the highways to the schools and campuses.

And now, public opinion has it that they are now courageous enough to go after the national assembly; an institution built and sustained by taxpayers’ money but occupied by characters who have ensnared Nigerians in the webs of poverty and hardship complicated by the institutionalization of insecurity and total anarchy.

There is no getting out of this unimaginable mess if we fail as a people to put an end to a regime of terror and institutionalized poverty. There is no better time than now for the oppressed people of Nigeria, North, South, and across all religious divides, to come together in unison to chant the songs of BuhariMustGo and clench their fists for a people’s revolution.

Opinion: Between The Drums Of Secession And Call For A Revolution

Sanyaolu Juwon
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Opinion: Between The Drums Of Secession And Call For A Revolution

Over the past few weeks, there has been an intensified publicity of the campaign for the breakaway of the Yoruba people from Nigeria. The proponents of this agitation want an independent republic of the Yoruba nation or as they put it — Oduduwa Republic. And over a week ago, the agitation has taken a step further with a recent press conference led by Sunday Igboho and Professor Banji Akintoye. At the press conference, the duo had pronounced into existence the Yoruba nation and forthwith, advised all persons of Yoruba descent living in the Northern region of Nigeria to return to the South-West, even as the duo warned of a looming ethnic war. In a show of seriousness for their agitation, a proposed currency for the Oduduwa Republic was afterward circulated on social media and publicized by the mainstream media. The currency was named “Fadaka” — a Yoruba word for Silver.

It should be noted that the demand for an independent nation of the Yoruba people did not just start this year. Such demands and agitations had been like a song on the lips of quite a number of persons over the past years.

An earlier call for Oduduwa Republic precipitated the announcement of a march which was scheduled for October 1, 2020. While the Nigerian government’s supposed ban on protests forced the Oduduwa Republic agitators into a cowardly capitulation, it was however impossible for the government to put a halt to the agitation due to the increasing socio-economic injustice within the country.

Needless to say, the renewed and intensified calls for a republic of the Yoruba people began with the rising cases of kidnappings and banditry in South-West Nigeria. While Northern Nigeria had suffered the worst cases of insecurity, terrorism, kidnappings, and banditry, most parts of the South-West, especially Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, and Ekiti states were also beginning to deal with similar threats but of lesser magnitude when compared to the horrors in the northern region, where women, men, girls, and boys have become easy prey in the fiery dens of bandits and terrorists. The fact that schools in Kaduna had to be closed by the state government is a testament to how much the insecurity in the North has taken a ridiculous turn of very embarrassing magnitude.

Of much deeper embarrassment is how powerless and utterly incapacitated the Nigerian government appears in the face of such insecurity that has consumed thousands of lives, rendered thousands homeless, made many fatherless, scores motherless, and more innocent children orphans. It is conditions such as this that gave rise to Sunday Igboho and his team who volunteered themselves to rid Yorubaland of insecurity by raising arms against the forces of banditry. While their aim expressed an intention to fight kidnappings and banditry, their methods of engagement and slogans are that of unfair ethnoreligious stereotyping against the Fulani people who are known for herding cattle.

Although the majority of the cattle herders are Fulani, it is evident that not all Fulani cattle herders are criminals, and definitely, not all Fulanis are bandits. Worthy of note is the fact that despite producing more Nigerian Presidents and Heads of State, Northern Nigeria ranks worse in the regional economic indices of the country. The Fulani people however are at the top of that ladder, with millions of poor people who could barely afford chickens, let alone cattle. While there may be a handful of Fulanis who own cattle in the South-West, most of the cattle being herded by poor Fulani herders are owned by some Southern elites who are into animal husbandry. In the event that some Fulani herders protect cattle with Ak-47 rifles, one can almost be certain that those weapons were provided by the Southern and Northern elites who own those cattle herded and protected by the poor Fulanis in the South-West. This makes it clear that the “ethnicization” of insecurity within the South-Western region of Nigeria is as unnecessary as ethnicizing terrorism in the Northern region of Nigeria. Ritual killings in Ijebu-Ode, child/street cultism in Lagos and street/campus cultism, and the age-long kidnapping in the South-South region of the country are pointers to the fact that insecurity is not synonymous with a particular ethnic group.

Furthermore, the regime of General Muhammadu Buhari in talks, actions, and inactions has not only proven to be completely incompetent, clueless, and largely anti-people, its demeanor, nepotism, and ethnoreligious favoritism have also helped water the seeds of ethnic strife within the country. It is in the light of these that what begun as a Sunday Igboho-led resistance against killer herdsmen had suddenly metamorphosed into a Yoruba self-determination agitation.

However, what most ethnic agitators fail to understand is that despite Buhari’s nepotism and ethnocentric politics or “Fulanization agenda” as some secessionists would call it, the millions of the average Fulani people have not benefited from this so-called “Fulanization agenda”, they have in fact become worse of, much further than they ever were even under regimes headed by Nigerians from the Southern region like Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan. On the contrary, the “Fulanization agenda” has only benefited and further empowered Buhari’s rich and powerful friends. In like manner, a “Southernization agenda” would most likely not be of any benefit to the average Southerner but for the rich and powerful Southern elites. Just the same way Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan’s led governments have only benefited their Southern friends and Northern cronies. The same way our respective state governors and legislators from the Southern region have only represented the interests of their rich friends and not the average  Southerner.

Before the recent calls for an independent State of the Yoruba people, there had been more serious calls for secession by other regions in Nigeria. And in each case, the Nigerian state has met such agitations with untoward violence and repression. The first of which happened during the administration of Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo Man from South-East Nigeria and the Nigerian Head of State as he then was. During the regime of Ironsi, Isaac Boro led several agitations and campaigns for the secession of the people of the Niger Delta majorly domiciled in what is now known as South-South region of Nigeria. The Aguiyi-Ironsi regime crushed the movement with maximum force and subsequently executed Isaac Boro.

The story of Biafra is a more popular one. The Biafran struggle for secession from Nigeria precipitated into over three years of war which led to the death of millions of Nigerians. The Nigerian state did not only crush the Biafra agitation with maximum force, but it also committed one of the worst genocide in the history of mankind. Interestingly, the shadows of the 20th century Biafra war are now upon us in the 21st century with a renewed call for Biafra Republic led by Nnamdi Kanu’s Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB. This is because the socio-economic conditions that led to the struggle for Biafra in 1967 are still prevalent in 2021, but in the worst dimension and in a way that has now attracted an additional campaign for the exit of the Yoruba people.

While the right to self-determination remains a right guaranteed by Local and International Laws of Man and Nature, do we actually need to go the ethnic route in pursuit of freedom and socio-economic justice? Does our problem as a people have anything to do with the ethnicity of persons in power? Already, South-West governors and a number of Monarchs who have done nothing other than stealing from the poor people of Western Nigeria have stated their opposition to the Igboho-led agitation for Oduduwa Republic. It was South-East governors that unanimously announced the proscription of IPOB and have on several occasions supported the killing of IPOB members and innocent Igbo bystanders by the Nigerian Army. Sanwo-Olu, a Yoruba man, was the one who invited the Nigerian Army to shoot at peaceful protesters at Lekki Tollgate during the #EndSARS protest in October 2020.

As President, Obasanjo, a Yoruba man from Ota, Ogun state, could not even erect a decent road in his hometown, Ota, let alone deliver quality governance to the people of Nigeria. Aside from the Legendary corruption, maladministration, and gross ineptitude of President Jonathan, his Hometown, Otuoke, in Bayelsa State, boasts only flooded roads and streets. And as I have previously enumerated, more Presidents and Heads of State had come from Northern Nigeria, but the North is the worst in all socio-economic indices with the highest rate of insecurity, illiteracy, poverty, mortality, poor hygiene, lack of accessibility to clean water and least infrastructure. To be clear, while southern elites have had their fair share in exploiting the poor people of the South and the Nigerian people at large, the North, however, parades the worst of the Nigerian elites. These people enslave their Northern poor counterparts and also prevent them from resistance by denying them education and imposing slavish religious indoctrinations. If the thoughts of objectivity are given a chance, then it’ll be clearer that the poor people across all ethnic groups are exploited by the rich and powerful elites organized across all ethnoreligious clusters across the country.

It is audible to the deaf and visible to the blind that the enemies of the Southern people are first the rich and powerful elites in the South, and then their rich and powerful Northern colleagues. All the governors, House of Representatives members, Senators, and Local government officials of the South are Southerners. They are directly responsible for the oppression and impoverishment of the Southern people before their Northern counterparts. Hence, does it not make sense for the poor people across all ethnoreligious groupings to bond themselves in a revolution against their common oppressors who are also organized and united irrespective of their ethnoreligious differences than to ensnare themselves in a civil war occasioned by ethnic agitations?

Meanwhile, history has proven that a civil war is always inevitable with secessionist agitations. A civil war is a war, funded by rich people but consumes the lives of poor people and destroys their properties and heritage. Here, poor persons of different ethnic backgrounds are the ones led to the slaughter, either as soldiers or innocent and hungry bystanders. Poor people die and fight themselves in a civil war that ends up benefiting in varying proportions, the elites of the different ethnic groups. Although the Nigerian State will respond to a call for revolution with very deadly hostility and violence, the oppressed people can be sure they are “dying” in a fight against their common oppressors, rather than killing themselves in an ethnic war imposed and funded by the rich elites of different ethnic groups.

Although due to better access to education when compared to the imposed illiteracy in the north, and Western civilization, the people of Southern Nigeria appear to be more politically conscious. Shall we then say the apparently more politically conscious South must wait endlessly on the growing consciousness of the oppressed people of the North? Definitely not! For me, I’d rather the oppressed people of the South fight the incompetent and anti-people federal government alongside their corrupt leaders and governors of Southern origin. And while doing this, also encourage and support the struggles of the poor people of the North against their more vicious ruling elites. Even if the Yoruba and Igbo must necessarily secede from Nigeria, it is most important to in the first instance, join hands to defeat the common exploiters of poor people, organized over and across all ethnic groups and regions.

In all, the division of oppressed people along ethnic lines does little or nothing to liberate the poor from the shackles of poverty, hardship, and oppression. On the contrary, it’ll end up strengthening the hold of the rich and powerful few over millions of poor and oppressed Nigerians.

Detention Ordeal: My First 11 Days Of 2021; Starting The Year On A Revolutionary Note

Sanyaolu Juwon
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Detention Ordeal: My First 11 Days Of 2021; Starting The Year On A Revolutionary Note

As though coming to battle notorious terrorists and bandits, they came at us with three loaded vehicles convening heavily armed men whose mean demeanor ricks only of lustful desperation for violence and blood. On the other hand, the only arm we had were the ones that acted as support to our revolutionary fists as they pointed to the direction of the cold air with full determination. The rest of our ‘’arms’’ and ‘’battle’’ artillery were placards, banners and our facemasks.

On the night of December 31st, 2020, at about 11 PM, we had gathered at Lokogoma junction and then proceeded to Gudu, Abuja for a CrossOver Protest/sensitization with demands bordering on good governance, respect for citizenship, end to police brutality, environmental justice and a permanent end to insecurity and bloodletting in the country. As of this time, similar actions were ongoing in other parts of Nigeria including certain parts of Lagos, Ondo, Osun, Ogun, Kano, Kaduna, Adamawa, Edo etc.

Our Action at Gudu had been peaceful and without any sort of hiccup until about 1 AM when we were about to leave for our various homes. The government deployed three trucks of anti-riot police, armed to the teeth with apparent resolve to leave behind an ugly scene of death and destruction. Seeing them in such a violent manner with which they invaded our peaceful assembly, a number of protesters understandably ran for their dear lives. Me and a few others like Michael Adenola that had seen them from afar chose to stand our ground as we were not prepared to surrender our country to the rule of tyranny and lawlessness. And like a pack of hungry wolves, they descended on us violently, heating us repeatedly with their guns even as torrents of heavy punches continuously landed on different parts of our bodies. We were bundled to the trunk of one of their trucks and chained to the vehicle like hardened criminals. It was the gory sight of our dehumanizing brutalization that caught the attention of Omoyele Sowore, Nigeria’s foremost revolutionary and investigative journalist who currently faces the charge of treasonable felony for protesting the tyranny, corruption and maladministration of the regime. Sowore all through our procession had been filming our action and made way to his vehicle when it was apparent that we were rounding up. He had to step down from his vehicle to challenge the bloodthirsty and husky looking security operatives. Sighting him, they also descended on him with such fury that made it apparent they had a score to settle with him. They broke his nose and hurled him into the truck with us. As if that was not enough, they sprayed directly on our eyes and faces, a very pepperish chemical substance that made even breathing very difficult. When I managed to challenge this unruly wickedness despite being chained down, one of the officers held me and the other started spraying this substance directly into my eyes and did not stop despite seeing how I struggled to grasp for breath. The pain was so intense that I could barely open my eyes for about two hours and my entire body felt so hot for more than four days.

The Buhari regime is generally popular for his lack of respect for civil rights and rule of law. His notoriety and uncommon penchant for rights violation were such that Punch Newspaper, a foremost Nigerian paper resolved in December 2019 to henceforth regard Buhari as Major General Buhari as against President Buhari, in all of its publication. Despite his infamous track records, a lot of us had thought the President was at least going to make the first of January, an exception, to at least indulge Nigerians in the freedom he had denied and violently attacked over the past 365 days. And as it turned out, we expected too much from a regime that has consciously expunged democratic creeds from his dictionary of governance.

From Gudu, we were moved to the detention facility of the Special Antirobbery Squad (SARS) at a police station called abattoir. This detention facility was notorious for torturing and killing its victims. Upon our arrival, the station officer, a SARS operative, led his junior colleagues to unleash on us more beatings and we were dragged into the cell like common criminals. The only warm reception we received was from other inmates who accorded us great regard and couldn’t stop talking about how greatly they appreciate our relentless struggles for the soul of our country. They went out of their way to get us mats and blankets with which to relax and rest our weakened joints. A number of these inmates were kept illegally in custody without being charged to court. For the next 3 days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we were caged like animals in a cell within the cell and this was our abode till Monday when we were moved to court. We were in the first instance denied access to our lawyers, families and friends. And quite unusually, we were also denied access to our books. Upon granting us access to our lawyers after mass uproar, we had to declare a hunger strike in detention before they were pressured into allowing us access to our books. According to our lawyer, Abubakar Mashal, reports of our hunger strike caught the attention of the public and the uproar that followed forced the police commissioner into calling our lawyer at the early hours of 4 AM. The commissioner appealed to Marshal to come to our detention facility and avail us our books which they had initially denied us.

When we were being moved to court on Monday morning, we were prepared for all theatrics the government had cooked up to keep us in detention for as long as possible, hence, we were prepared for the worst. So that we were not caught off guard when the magistrate court, sitting at Wuse 2, Abuja, denied us bail, remanded us at Kuje Prison and impressed that our lawyer instead filed a written bail application. Prior to the pronouncement of our remand in prison, the police refused us phones to speak to our lawyers and arranged a team of five lawyers posing as human rights lawyers. The plan was to have those lawyers hoodwink us into taking up our defense in the absence of our lawyer and then use these so-called human rights lawyers to keep us in detention for as long as possible. When they approached us in court, we immediately told them off. Without the presence of our lawyer, the court session commenced and the prosecuting team announced appearances. When the magistrate, Mabel Segun Bello, called for appearance of the defense, the arranged lawyers whom we have told off attempted to announce appearance on our behalf but were immediately interrupted by Sowore who informed the court that the lawyers had no permission to represent us and lamented how we were denied access to our lawyers when we were being brought down to the court. The exchange between Sowore and the prosecuting team continued until the magistrate decided to adjourn for 10 minutes. By the time the magistrate returned to her seat, our lawyer was now in court. The disappointment in the face of the police prosecutors was so obvious. The arrival of our lawyer anyway did not stop them from achieving their devious aim of keeping us in detention. However, they would have been opportuned to keep us far longer if their game of imposing lawyers on us had worked. With our lawyers in court, we were able to take a plea on trumped-up charges bordering on “unlawful assembly”, “incitement” and “criminal conspiracy.” However, they would have been opportuned to keep us far longer if their game of imposing lawyers on us had worked.

Activists appear at the magistrate court, Wuse Abuja after spending four days in detention
Omoyele Sowore (Right), Sanyaolu Juwon (Left), Adenola Michael (Mid-Left) in conversation with their Lawyer, Abubakar Marshal (Mid-Right). They are part of many victims of police brutality, human rights abuses, and strangulation of civil rights by the Nigerian government. Credit: Witness

The road to Kuje was terribly bad and extremely tiring. The roads were so bad and highly discomforting to the extent that the police who were taking us to the prison complained very bitterly and relentlessly too. I had to immediately remind them how they would have shot at protesters if residents of Kuje had come out to protest bad roads. In fairness however to most of the Junior officers in the police, it was clear to us that a number of them sympathize with our struggles but lack the courage to turn their guns against the real oppressors of our mutual interest.  

When we arrived at Kuje Prison, the prison officials professionally told the police delegation that brought us that they had stopped accepting inmates due to COVID-19 and that their isolation facility is equally unavailable at the moment. Desperate to keep us in Prison, calls began jamming calls. From the police commissioner to the IG to numerous power brokers at the higher ups until a phone directive came to the prison controller who had to drive all the way from his home down to the prison. Sowore during the period of the wait told the police delegation that ‘’if the Police Commissioner was so desperate about keeping us in detention, he can as well keep us in his house where he will volunteer as a teacher to his children and lecture his wards how not to be a lawless public officer like their father.’’

We were at last admitted into the Prison and each of us dumped in solitary confinement. The prison confinement we were dumped looked like the ones reserved for persons on a death roll, but the prison warders called it a ‘’COVID-19 isolation facility.’’ We were denied access to doctors, food and our books throughout the night of our stay in prison. The following morning, 5th of January, when we were processed and returned to court for a bail application hearing, information of our presence, especially that of Sowore had become popular amongst prison inmates such that the Niger Delta activists among them were seen struggling to come towards us but were sternly repelled by the prison warders.

Another activist arrested and brutalized alongside Sowore and others during the early hours of January 1st
Emanuel Bulus was violently arrested, brutalized, and incarcerated alongside four other activists for protesting bad governance. Credit: Witness

Like criminals, we were handcuffed and hurled into the prison’s blackmaria that would be convening us to court. Stepping out of the blackmaria with cuffs in our hands infuriated the mass of Nigerians who had come to court to show us solidarity. Our lawyers did not take it easy either as they immediately demanded the removal of the cuffs. As the court session began anew, the Magistrate, Mabel failed again to grant our prayers for a bail after our application met vehement opposition from the police prosecutors. The magistrate then ordered that we should be remanded at the Police Force Criminal Investigation Department till Friday, 8th of January when she would then give a ruling on our bail application. In her ruling, she included a caveat allowing us access to medical attention, our books and upon Sowore’s request, made a special order to avail Adenola Michael, a level 3 law student, internet facility with which to participate in his classes which had commenced online on 4th of January. But of course, the police had no internet facility, neither did they have any decent hospital or detention facility.

Upon our arrival at the Force CID, we were immediately processed and hauled into our cell. Just like abattoir, our first detention center, we were locked up in a ‘’cage within a cage’’. The Police officers before our arrival had warned all inmates to steer clear of our cell and not canvas with us. This apparently was to prevent us from radicalizing the rest of the inmates. And just like we had it at our previous detention centers, we also had great support from the other cell mates. Despite restrictions warning the rest of the cell mates to steer clear from our own cell, a number of them still took turns in confiding in us, several injustices they have had to endure in detention, including how poorly they are fed and how a number of them have been denied access to lawyers and their families. Of the numerous cases, one caught our special attention. And it was the case of one Solomon Akuma, a pharmacist who had been remanded since April, 2020, for anti-Buhari twitter comments. The Pharmacist faces charges of treasonable felony, amongst many other charges. And while in detention, the government had done all they could to demoralize him. He was tortured into making a self indicating “confessional statement with the police’’, denied access to lawyer, family and told by police to plead guilty to ‘’criminal charges’’ they had forced him into admitting in a ‘’confessional statement.’’ Despite this, Akuma Solomon remains unbroken.

On the morning of Friday, 8th January, 2021, at about 8 AM, the police PPRO had come to our cell to inform us about our movement to court by 9 AM as ordered by the magistrate. Seconds became minutes, and minutes became hours, until about 10 AM, we were still in our cell and it wasn’t looking as though the police were prepared to comply with the orders of the court. Out of nowhere, one of the police officers stationed to our cell showed up. He said to Sowore, ‘’Leader, your attention is needed. Once Sowore stepped out, I had asked our comrades to also get ready in the hope that Sowore’s invitation was about our movement to the court. Once Sowore got back, I laughed uncontrollably at myself when I realized the persons who Sowore’s attention was called on were comrades who helped bring us food, water and other necessities. The summary is that, again the government proved its capacity and penchant for lawlessness with the flagrant disregard of a court order. Worthy of note is that prior to now, the Buhari Junta has violated over 40 court orders. One of such orders is one that granted bail to the Shiite leader, Sheik El ZakZaky and despite several court orders ordering his release, General Buhari has illegally held the Sheik since 2015. The police however weren’t the only culprit of this episode. Upon realizing the wretched game the police were playing, our lawyer went to court with the hope that the magistrate was going to sit as ordered. The court did not only fail to sit, the magistrate told our lawyer she wouldn’t sit unless we were produced in court. Meanwhile, the magistrate could have still ensured the court seats as ordered and at least made a pronouncement on bail. It was also within the constitutional powers of the magistrate to move the court to the police headquarters where we were detained and still make a pronouncement that must force the police into immediate compliance. She failed to do any of this and consciously helped police violate the orders of her own court.

Failing to produce us in court on Friday, we were forced to spend the next three days in the mosquito-infested and shitty detention facility. The wait wasn’t so bad though as it availed us the opportunity to meet certain new inmates who had been transferred from Abattoir, our first detention center before Kuje Prison. They informed us of how the abattoir police immediately freed/charged over 40 inmates who had been illegally detained. According to them, the police feared we may expose this illegality on their part once we get out. 

On Sunday, one of the inmates informed us that we will definitely leave detention on Monday and that he learnt that people were coming to protest at the Force CID. We became very certain that the police, fearing protest, had furnished the inmate closest to us with this information with the certainty that he would get us informed in the hope that someway, we’ll be able to communicate with ‘’our people’’ on the outside not to protest on Monday. Hence, it was the fear of a Monday Protest that influenced their decision to take us to court on Monday. We arrived at the court to the cheer of a mass of highly resilient Nigerians who have begun staging protests in front of the court building.

Entering into Magistrate Mabel’s court, the session as usual started with the prosecution and defense announcing appearances before the magistrate went into a long read of very verbose and deceitful ruling. Her ruling announced bail conditions that were no doubt not only vindictive and stringent but also that the court had preempted guilt before trial. One of the bail conditions ordered our restriction to Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria. Aside from the general bail conditions, Sowore was also ordered by the court to henceforth make a registered presence at the office of the registrar of the FCT high court every Monday and Friday.

Generally, the whole point to our brutalizations, arrest and 11-day detention at three different prison and detention facilities respectively was to discourage and punish our resolve to mobilize Nigerians in the line of social revolution that places public wealth into the hands and control of ordinary people. Alas, we have long surpassed the stage of fear into the realm of determination and courage, heading to the destination of freedom. And like the words of Leon Trotsky, the late Russian Revolutionary, ‘’We will not concede this Revolutionary banner to the masters of oppression and falsehood! If our generation happens to be too weak to establish a Revolution, we will hand the spotless banner down to the next generation. The struggle which is in the offing transcends by far the importance of individuals, factions, and parties. It is the struggle for the future of our country. It will be severe. It will be lengthy. Whoever seeks physical comfort and spiritual calm, let him step aside. Neither threats, nor persecutions, nor violations can stop us! Be it even over our bleaching bones, the truth will triumph! We will blaze the trail for it. It will conquer! Under all the severe blows of fate, I shall be happy, as in the best days of my youth! Because, friends, the highest human happiness is not the exploitation of the present but the preparation of the future.

One Dead, Others Injured As Customs, Soldiers Fired Several Shots Over Inability Of Goods Transporters To Pay Bribe

Sanyaolu Juwon
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One Dead, Others Injured As Customs, Soldiers Fired Several Shots Over Inability Of Goods Transporters To Pay Bribe

The Yewa North Patriotic Forum has expressed its preparedness to take to the streets over a recent attack on residents by a joint patrol of the Nigerian Customs and Army. The unfortunate incident which occurred on the 22nd of December, 2020 led to the death of one Olushola Samuel Ashamu with many others sustaining severe injuries.

Extrajudicial killing of Olushola Samuel Ashamu
Late Olushola Samuel Ashamu is yet another victim of extrajudicial killings and widespread impunity in Nigeria. Credit: Witnesses

In an interview with the Leader of the Forum, Omobolaji Oluwafisayomi Sanni, the Customs officers did not only seize the seven buses carrying goods, but they also brutalized the owners of the goods, shot randomly at people, causing the death of Olushola Samuel Ashamu, an innocent bystander. According to Comrade Sanni, the violence unleashed against the community on the said date started with the inability of the owners of the goods to raise the amount of bribes demanded by the officers. Sequel to this, the officers comprising of the military and customs seized the seven buses filled with goods, shot at people sporadically as they advanced with the goods, and subsequently proceeded to Ayetoro market, where they brutalized and shot at more people. Comrade Sanni said this is not the first time violence of this nature will be unleased against residents of the community by customs officers stationed at this community.

Widespread violence in Nigeria
Woman sustained wounds from sporadic gunshots and invasion of Ayetoro Market by government security forces. Credit: Witnesses
Widespread violence in Nigeria
Injured man assisted by a group of people after sporadic gunshots and invasion of Ayetoro Market by government security forces. Credit: Witnesses

The Forum in a statement called for the immediate intervention of the government to; ban the joint patrol of Army and Customs within their respective border towns, set up panels of inquiry to look into the horrific event of December 22, remove all Road Blocks erected by men of Nigeria Customs Service in towns and villages that are not 20km to the border. The statement also called for justice for victims of the dastardly event and the family of the slain victim.

#EndSARS: Two Months After Lekki Massacre, Sanwo-Olu, Buratai Yet To Be Sacked And Tried For Crimes Against Humanity By Sanyaolu Juwon

Sanyaolu Juwon
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#EndSARS: Two Months After Lekki Massacre, Sanwo-Olu, Buratai Yet To Be Sacked And Tried For Crimes Against Humanity By Sanyaolu Juwon

In a gory event widely described as Black Tuesday, Nigerians witnessed one of the most violent crackdowns on protest since the Enugu Iva Valley Massacre in 1949. Like bloodthirsty Vamps, the army and police on October 20, descended on peaceful protesters with the kind of force and desperation only witnessed in movies and war. We lost our Brothers, Friends, Fathers, Mothers, Sons and Daughters to the uncontrollable bloodlust of a rapacious and highly vindictive ruling elites. Just like yesterday, we saw our friends lying helplessly on the floor, drowned in their own pool of blood. Armed only with flags and solidarity songs, our friends were shot without mercy and hunted like games for exercising their legitimate right to protest. It was a day when the cries of despair competed with the horrific sounds of bullets. 

And as we watch our brothers fall to their death and our sisters drowned in their own pull of blood, we wondered if we had committed any crime for demanding a country where the creed of citizenship is respected and being young isn’t criminalized. We wondered if we had erred by demanding an end to the culture of impunity, respect for the rule of law, and democratic ethos. We marveled at what kind of a country treats its citizens with such disdain and unprecedented cruelty. Our protest which had lingered for close to two weeks was mobilized around specific demands to end police brutality, extrajudicial killings, and proper remuneration for the armed forces. However, on October 20, the government sent a clear message that it wouldn’t be willing to put an end to this undemocratic and barbaric practice. It was clear that our two-week protest, despite grounding the entire country, fell on deaf ears. We were not only brutalized and killed by the police, the latter and the military competed for the highest kill.

Amidst the madness of the massacre, the Lagos state government directed the Judicial Panel of inquiries to include the Lekki Massacre as part of its term of reference. Prior to this, the Lagos State Governor, Sanwo-Olu had denied having a single knowledge about the Lagoswide onslaught against protesters and had placed the blame at the doorsteps of the military. In a counter defense, the Military expressed grave shock at the denial of the Lagos Governor and reiterated that they stormed the streets of Lagos on the request of the Governor. It wasn’t until then the Governor made a U-turn and now admitted inviting the military. This was a man who in a CNN interview, shamelessly lied to the World about his involvement in this dastardly aggression and violent murder of our friends at Lekki and other parts of Lagos. What is more unfortunate albeit not surprising is the loud silence of both the Lagos House and National Assembly. None of these legislative organs devoted time to deliberate on this sad incident. Despite admittance of complicity by the culprits of the Lekki Massacre, no single action from state and national legislative arms. This was a time Nigerians completely lost confidence in their democracy and had to rely on the British Parliament to protect its interest. You will recall a similar occurrence with Sowore’s trial where it took the US parliament to deliberate and condemn the invasion of our court, disregard for court orders, rights violation, and sham trial of Sowore by the tyrannic Buhari regime, whereas the Nigerian legislative arm kept mum and were observing table manners. 

Of greater insult is how Sanwo-Olu had the temerity to direct the investigation of killings where he had played a very conspicuous role. And ever since the constitution of the infamous judicial panel, no single government official has been brought to book. Despite incontrovertible visual evidence and testimonies that have indicted the military and the state governor, no single conviction has happened. On the contrary, what we see is the same shameless culprits going after EndSARS protesters. We see a government that freezes account of some EndSARS Protesters, hounding several others to their homes and continue to arrest and remand scores in prison. As we speak, there are several EndSARS protesters like Nicholas Mbah languishing in different Nigerian Prisons, while the culprits who ordered and coordinated the murder and brutalization of our friends continue to walk freely.

Needless to say, the Nigerian government and the armed forces have become more ruthless and lawless since the EndSARS protest. They have now openly turned Nigeria into a police state where rights to peaceful assembly have now been officially criminalized. Police and Military have become more emboldened in abusing the rights of Nigerians and now have no business chasing crimes while the entire country falls to the control of insecurity, kidnappings, and banditry. Nigerians aren’t only getting more insecure in their own country, they are also getting poorer with unprecedented economic hardship.

Conclusively, it is more than evident that Nigerians cannot continue to watch while Buhari and the APC rule us like a conquered people. We cannot continue to watch in docility and fear as the government rips us of our humanity, dignity, and citizenship. We cannot continue to agonize in despair as Buhari continues to handover our country to the rule of banditry, kidnappings, poverty, lawlessness, and anarchy. It is clear that the status quo is deleterious, its funeral is long overdue; RevolutionNow.

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