United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, has told President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration and other governments to stop enforced disappearances.
A telling report by the International Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law (Intersociety) revealed that in Nigeria, “not less than 600 (Igbo youths) were disappeared or feared killed in the captivity” of the Nigerian military. It also stated that “over 90 per cent of the victims of the atrocities are innocent.”
The UN chief urged countries to fulfil their obligations toward preventing and prosecuting cases of enforced disappearance, a “cowardly practice” which the coronavirus pandemic has made even more difficult to combat.
Mr Guterres made the appeal in his message on Monday to mark the International Day honouring victims of this serious human rights violation, observed on August 30.
“Together, we can, and we must end all enforced disappearances,” he said.
Enforced disappearance refers to the arrest, detention, or abduction of persons by state agents or those acting with state authorization or support whose whereabouts are unknown.
Abubakar Dadiyata, a critic of the government in Nigeria, abducted since 2019 in Kaduna has not been seen to date.
According to the UN, once largely the product of military dictatorships, enforced disappearance has become a global problem, with hundreds of thousands of people disappearing in more than 80 countries.
Director-General, National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Balarabe Ilelah
Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Balarabe Ilelah, vowed on Monday that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari will continue to guide journalists and media houses on what to report. He noted that outlets caught flouting broadcasting codes (set by the NBC) would be summoned to explain themselves.
“NBC is not here to suppress press freedom but to guide the press,” Mr Ilelah said. “Our duty is to make sure that everybody is given a fair playing ground so that you can say whatever you want to say that is according to the law.”
“We are going to keep on fighting people that are spreading fake news. The commission will not be scared and will keep on summoning anyone who goes contrary to NBC code,” Mr Ilelah said during a visit to his office by members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists.
Led by the NUJ president, Chris Isiguzo, the journalists said they had come to “interface with the commission” as “strategic state products in the Nigerian politic.”
Mr Ilelah warned that media houses must “operate within the ambit of the law”, and that anyone found wanting “must be held accountable.”
According to him, “As leaders of your various reputable and responsible organisations, I want you to tell your members that nobody is above the law. All of us must live within the coverage of the law, and we must be held accountable.”
Mr Ilelah said the NBC mandate is to regulate and work with media houses to sanitise the industry and ensure that things are done according to the law.
Earlier, the NUJ President, while congratulating Mr Ilelah, said for democracy to thrive, the media must be allowed to operate without unnecessary encumbrances.
“That media must at all times operate without harassment, incessant harassment, intimidations, frequent queries, summons, arrests and what have you.
“We are not people that are fighting to bring down the country. The media professionals worked tirelessly to ensure that Nigeria became a democratic nation.
“Therefore, it will be unthinkable for anybody to begin to imagine that the same media will also be at the vanguard of ensuring that what it worked, fought and won, is at the same time destroyed,” he said.
The journalists asked NBC to grant them a licence to operate the NUJ radio and television.
Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad
The Chief Justice of Nigeria and Chairman of the National Judicial Commission, Justice Tanko Muhammad, has summoned the Chief Judges of six states over the conflicting decisions all given by courts of coordinate jurisdiction.
The Chief Judges summoned are those of Rivers, Kebbi, Cross River, Anambra, Jigawa, and Imo states.
“It has become expedient for me to invite you for a detailed briefing on the development.
“This is even more compelling, having regard to earlier NJC warning to judicial officers on the need to be circumspect in granting ex parte applications,” the summon sent to the chief judges read in part.
Media aide to the CJN, Ahuraka Idaho, also confirmed the development to our correspondent on Monday.
He however said he had no information on the date the summoned judges will meet with the CJN.
The Peoples Democratic Party has said its stand that the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress is “a haven of thieves and treasury looters” has been vindicated by a confession made by the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.
The party said Amaechi recently confessed that “stealing is going on quietly” under the Buhari regime.
According to the PDP, the “confession also further confirms that the Buhari-led APC administration has been providing official cover for corrupt officials, who have turned government agencies to cash cows and Automated Teller Machines (ATM) for themselves, their cronies, family members and mistresses.”
The PDP said this in a statement titled, ‘Amaechi’s APC Looting Confession Vindicates PDP,’ signed by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan on Monday.
The statement read in part, “The situation as presented by Amaechi shows that ‘quiet stealing’ is a policy of the APC administration.
“This explains why the administration is heavy on propaganda and has failed to prosecute its officials and APC leaders openly indicted for corruption, but only resort to “easing out” such thieves with a pat on the wrist.
“The confession by Amaechi exposes why the APC administration has failed to recover the over N25 trillion naira reportedly stolen by APC leaders in various government agencies.
“Nigerians now have a clearer picture on how the N9.3 trillion as detailed in the reported NNPC memo was stolen, how over N2 trillion was allegedly siphoned under fraudulent subsidy regime as well as how the N1.1 worth of crude oil was reportedly stolen using 18 unregistered vessels.
“This is in addition to the revelation by the National Security Adviser (NSA), Gen. Babagana Monguno, that billions of naira meant for security under the APC could not be traced.
“Nigerians now know how billions of naira reportedly stolen from various agencies including the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), in which a very top APC government official was indicted, as well as the N500 billion Social Investment Programme fund, as revealed by First Lady, Aisha Buhari, were siphoned.
“Amaechi’s confession has also shed more light on the circumstance behind the alleged stealing of N165 billion in the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) under his ministerial purview, the N1.5 trillion and $9.5 million reportedly stolen from Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), the $65 million (N31 billion) frittered from the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) as well as the N90 billion looted from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), among others.
“This is in addition to the alleged secret looting of huge part of foreign loans and repatriated funds placed at the disposal of the APC and its administration.
“The APC has looted our nation into two excruciating economic recessions in a space of six years and turned our nation into the poverty capital of the world, where over 83 million citizens live in abject impoverishment and unable to afford basic necessities of life.
“The PDP charges Nigerians to hold the APC and its leaders responsible for all the woes that have befallen the nation in the last six years and ensure that the fizzling APC is not allowed anywhere near the governance of our nation, come 2023.”
An Oyo State High Court sitting in Ibadan on Monday extended an interim order restraining the Department of State Services, and the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), from arresting, killing, or harassing Yoruba nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo, also known as Sunday Igboho.
The court presided over by Justice Ladiran Akintola also extended the order stopping the DSS and AGF from freezing the accounts of the embattled activist facing trial in Cotonou, Benin Republic.
Lead counsel for Igboho, Yomi Aliyu (SAN), confirmed the development to reporters on Monday after the ruling.
He said, “The judge said the interim order of injunction should continue until September 7 when we will go back to court.”
It had earlier been reported that Justice Akintola had on August 4, 2021, ordered the secret police and the AGF not to arrest Igboho or freeze his bank accounts.
Counsel for the AGF, E. Simeon, had appealed the court to vacate its earlier restraining judgement but Aliyu said he had filed for an extension of the order on August 26, 2021, therefore, the new application should not be granted.
Simeon consequently sought another adjournment for him to reply to the application as the time frame of seven days had not elapsed.
On his part, the DSS lawyer, T. Nurudeen, said he had not been served with the new processes, urging the court to adjourn the case.
Justice Akintola subsequently adjourned the case till September 7, 2021, for hearing.
Igboho had through his counsel approached the court and filed an originating summon alongside an application praying the court to stop the DSS and the AGF from arresting him.
He is also seeking N5bn damages for the destruction of his house and cars.
Igboho, wanted by the DSS, has been in detention in Cotonou, Benin Republic, since July 19, 2021, when he was arrested at an airport as he tried to board a Germany-bound flight.
The DSS had raided his Ibadan residence on July 1, 2021, killed two of his associates and arrested 12 others.
Igboho and the leader of the umbrella body of the Yoruba self-determination group known as Ilana Omo Oodua, Banji Akintoye, have been seen together at press conferences and rallies championing the cause to secede from the Nigerian state and establish a Yoruba Nation despite the Federal Government’s insistence of a united and indissoluble Nigeria.
Akintoye, 86, said he relocated to Benin Republic to ensure the release of 48-year-old Igboho.
Nigeria’s Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has said unlike ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime is looting Nigeria’s treasury on low-key.
Speaking of brazen looting of the country’s funds under Jonathan, Amaechi stated that the looters “had nothing to do to show for it.”
“They did not have a carpentry shop, but they were billionaires. They did not hide it. But here (Buhari’s regime), if you are stealing, it is done quietly,” the minister revealed in an interview with Daily Trust.
Speaking on how the regime has managed the country’s resources in the past years, Amaechi, an ally of Buhari, noted that stealing was taking place “quietly” under the regime.
“I want Nigerians to be honest. Can you openly take money from this government? I am not saying whether we are corrupt or not,” he acknowledged.
Amaechi also claimed that corrupt officeholders displayed their wealth without fears of being prosecuted, compared to the current administration where looters “face the consequences” for their actions.
“Let us assume we are corrupt: can you openly take money in this government? In the past governments, what happened? You can take money in the streets. Corruption was so pervasive that nobody was talking about it,” said Amaechi. It was not hidden that people completely and openly displayed their wealth.”
Admitting that Buhari’s regime is not corruption-free, the transportation minister pointed out, “But here (under Buhari’s regime), if you are stealing, it is done quietly. I am not saying it is good. It is a sin punishable.
He added, “In the previous government, you could steal, and you won’t be caught. If you were caught, there wouldn’t be consequences. But in this government, if you steal, there are consequences.”
In its ‘2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Nigeria’, the U.S. noted that corruption under Buhari was “massive and pervasive.”
“Although the law provides criminal penalties for conviction of official corruption, the government did not consistently implement the law, and government employees frequently engaged in corrupt practices with impunity,” the U.S. report said. “Massive, widespread, and pervasive corruption affected all levels of government, including the judiciary and security services.”
The report also accused anti-corruption agencies, Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and EFCC of only going after low-level officials but delay procedures in cases of high-level officials indicted for financial crimes.
“The bulk of ICPC and EFCC anti-corruption efforts remained focused on low- and mid-level government officials,” explained the U.S. report. “In 2019, both organisations started investigations into and brought indictments against various active and former high-level government officials. Many of the corruption cases, particularly the high-profile ones, remained pending before the court due to administrative or procedural delays.”
Critics have accused Buhari of failing to tackle corruption which he said would be his priority prior to his first election in 2015. Corruption has remained rampant as Nigeria ranked 149 out of the 180 countries surveyed in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2020.
The 2020 ranking makes Nigeria the second most corrupt West African country, with Guinea Bissau topping the list.
As of 2019, Nigeria ranked 146th, although the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) did not agree with the ranking.
Tajudeen Bakare, a leader of Ogboni fraternity who was arrested in July at the Yoruba Nation rally in Ojota, Lagos has said he chose not to disappear when men of the Lagos Police Command seized him.
According to him, he considered it inappropriate to disappear because he was arrested alongside some other persons.
Bakare, who spoke in Yoruba, said there were six other people in the vehicle with him when they were arrested and he was concerned about their fate should he escape and leave them behind.
He said he allowed himself to be arrested with the others “to protect them because they are not members of Ogboni fraternity”.
Bakare revealed this during his recent interview with BBC News Yoruba.
He also disclosed that he was shocked at the murder allegations levelled against him by the state’s authorities, saying he had no gun with him when he was arrested.
“We were not arrested at the Yoruba Nation rally ground. And I did not kill anybody. Or how is it possible for someone who does not have a gun on him to shoot another person to death?” he said.
Bakare submitted that still, he was not perturbed.
He said should there be another Yoruba Nation rally, he would be actively involved.
Policemen had besieged the venue of the Yoruba Nation rally in Ojota on July 3, 2021 and in an attempt to disperse protesters, allegedly shot one Jumoke Oyeleke.
President Muhammadu Buhari has slammed the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) for unleashing terror on the South-East and parts of the South-South, describing them as thieves and terrorists.
The President said this in a statement by his media aide Garba Shehu on Sunday.
President Buhari, however, maintained that to achieve success, communities must unite against these horrific attacks, saying retributive violence was not the answer.
He challenged religious, traditional, and community leaders on the need to preach peace and preventing violence.
”Attempts to simplify the reasons into a basic narrative may help raise donor-dollars for international NGOs, fill pages of overseas newspapers and burnish foreign politicians’ faith credentials,” the President argued. “But this does not increase understanding, nor offer solutions. If anything, simplistic theorising and finger-pointing make the situation worse.”
He pointed out that “it is important both for Nigerians and the international community to appreciate that there are” a multitude of factors responsible for the worsening insecurity in Nigeria.
President Buhari further explained that “there are no religious connotations at all when the primary purpose of these acts is to extract money.”
The President insisted that the “herder-farmer” violent conflict was a matter of “water and land,” not religion.
“Then the herder-farmer clashes. While international voices and some Nigerian politicians who seek personal gains from division declare this a matter of religion, for those involved, it is almost entirely a matter of access to water and land,” he stated. “Herders have moved their cattle into contact with farmers for millennia. But increasingly, due to population pressure, escalating aridity of northern states, and climate change, they are forced to travel further south to find grazing lands.”
On the activities of IPOB, the President noted that “further afield in the South-East, IPOB are not struggling for freedom when they attack police stations and property, but rather committing acts of terrorism” to steal money.
“IPOB is not defending Christians, as their highly paid foreign lobbyists claim,” Mr Buhari pointed out, “when almost every citizen of those states they terrorize is uniformly Christian.”
A few months ago, President Buhari’s regime repatriated IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, from Kenya, and now facing various criminal charges in court. He is in detention. Kanu and IPOB are seeking the secession of the South-East from Nigeria.
However, Buhari has urged Nigerians to be united against “those who seek to divide us for their own nefarious financial and political gain.”
The Academic Staff Union of Universities has expressed its readiness to embark on another round of industrial action following what it called the failure of the Federal Government to implement an agreement signed with the union.
The union is giving the government till month end (Tuesday) to reach out or it will activate the procedure of embarking on strike.
The union’s President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, who disclosed this in an interview with The PUNCH on Sunday, added that the Federal Government no longer picked its calls.
Recall that in March 2020, ASUU embarked on a strike following its disagreement with the Federal Government over the funding of the universities and the ineffectiveness and discrepancies around the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System and others.
ASUU, however, developed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution to replace IPPIS and had several meetings with the Ministries of Finance, Education, Labour and Employment, and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation before it was approved but yet to be implemented.
Likewise, the Federal Government and ASUU signed an agreement aimed at resolving some of the demands of ASUU, a development that led to the suspension of the strike on December 24, 2020.
In addition, after a meeting with the FG on August 2, 2021, Osodeke said the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency insisted that UTAS must be re-presented to the end users.
Also, at the meeting, Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, assured ASUU that the N22bn earned allowance captured in the 2021 supplementary budget would soon be accessed by university workers.
On the contrary, Osodeke told one of our correspondents on Sunday that the Federal Government had stopped reaching out to ASUU and had failed to implement the agreement reached.
Due to government’s silence over their demands, Osodeke said the union would not hesitate to embark on a fresh strike to protest government’s failure.
He said, “The government has refused to reach out to us. Government officials have stopped. In fact, they don’t take our calls again. Nigerians should tell the government to do what they agreed to do.
“We signed an agreement and even in May, we reached a final agreement; this is August and nothing has been implemented. Does it make any sense? We are giving them till the end of August and after that, we start the procedures.”
Adeola Soetan was a staff of the Nigeria Television Authority, NTA, Abeokuta when some young student leaders from the Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile-Ife visited the station. Cladded in black, they came in connection with the annual commemoration of the June 7, 1981 massacre of six students in Ife by the Police.
The students looked so young, yet articulate and confident while being interviewed, that he decided in furthering his studies, to attend the OAU. So in 1986, he was admitted into the institution for a five -year course in Agriculture. He was aged 25.But when he got to the campus, the student union that attracted him, had been banned over protests against the student massacre at the Ahmadu Bello University, ABU.
On campus, he started writing and pasting articles why student unionism should be restored. His articles carried his name and room number. One day, two young students, Yinka Odumakin, later a national figure in Nigerian politics, and Kola Odetola visited and invited him to join a student journal, ‘Ripples’. A month later, they invited him to a student seminar where he met young students discussing how to revive the student union and intelligently analyzing national and international politics. That was how he joined the radical students movement.
About three months later, during the university convocation, the representative of the Visitor, Admiral Patrick Koshoni, was stoned by students protesting the trial for treason of eleven electricity senior staff who had gone on strike in protest against the neglect of their sector. Soetan was not present when this happened. He had attended an all-night social party the day before, and slept most of the day. So when Koshoni was stoned, he was sound asleep in his room. About 9.30pm, Odumakin and Odetola came to his room and asked whether he listened to the NTA Network News. No he hadn’t. So they informed him he was one of the students the university claimed to have identified stoning Koshoni and has therefore been rusticated indefinitely. He was just four months on campus!
Soetan an orphan since 19, was sponsoring himself in school with help from his sister, Rosalyn Soetan. She seemed so devastated and exclaimed: “How could you go and stone the Minister?” He replied: “ I did not stone the Minister, I was not even there.” She responded: “Ah! Iro ni”(Ah! It is a lie).
Soetan went to court to prove he was not physically present at the convocation and was not given any hearing. Also, to point out that three of the eight rusticated students were pen names, so how could the university claim people whose identity they do not know, were seen stoning the Minister? Additionally, that one of the remaining names, Seni Ajayi was served his rustication letter in Ondo whereas the person served had graduated and left the university! So, it was clearly a case of mistaken identity. Soetan lost the case but the reinvigorated student union asked the rusticated students to resume classes, and the university turned a blind eye.
In April 1990, Soetan was elected the student union President. Shortly afterwards, there were national student protests and the OAU students union was banned and the school closed down for one month.
Then there was an attempted coup in the country on April 22, 1990 and state security agents invaded the campus and abducted two lecturers, Professors Omotoye Olorode and Idowu Awopetu. In the process of spiriting the lecturers away, one of the agents in his car lagged behind, was apprehended by the students and beaten. The university authorities wanted to save the life of the security agent from the thousands of angry students, but could not persuade them, so they appealed to Soetan.
He asked in what capacity he was to intervene since the union had been banned. But the university denied the union was banned. So he spoke to the students and assured them that the union was capable of handling the situation. Later, the university wrote the students inviting them to meet government representatives who were threatening to storm the campus unless the agent was released. The students rejected the letter, insisting it should be properly addressed. Two hours later, the university unbanned the students union and returned with a letter addressed to the President of the students union. So the students agreed to the meeting. The security agent was released after spending 12 days in the students custody.
In 1991, the National association of Nigerian Students, NANS, ordered a nationwide students boycott of classes in furtherance of its demand for a N2,000 bursary for students and the right to education. When a student congress was called in OAU to mobilise for this protest, a cult group, the Black Axe posted notices decreeing: “No Rally. No protest on campus. Be warned.” When Soetan led the student congress that held in Awolowo Hall, there were disturbances.
His supporters guided him to safety in his Room 273, Awolowo Hall. Then the armed cultists smashed his door, dragged him out, broke a flower vase on his head and brought him to the ground floor. It was at that point students realised what was going on and came to his rescue. The cultists broke into a run, fleeing into the hills. But one of them ran to the bar of the Student Union Building, SUB, from where he flung bottles at the students injuring a number. The students retaliated likewise and he was severely injured. He died while being taken to the teaching hospital.
The university was closed down for two weeks. On resumption, Soetan was invited with some students to write a statement on the incident at the More Police Station, Ife. Eighteen of them were detained and later taken to police cells in Ibadan. After about one month, Soetan and three others were brought back to Ife, and amidst police-student street battles, were charged with conspiracy and murder before a magistrate court. They were remanded at the Ilesha prisons where they spent seven months (June 12, 1991-January, 1992) before the police discontinued the case.
On return to campus, Soetan was again expelled, this time for failing to register for two semesters which was impossible as he was in police cell and prison for eight months. The struggle to get him recalled went on for over two years.
Soetan, even without failing his examinations, spent 13 years in OAU for a five-year programme. He passed through four Vice Chancellors: Professor Wande Abimbola who first expelled him; Professor Adeniyi Osuntogun, the next to expel him; Professor Wale Omole, the third to expel him; and Professor Makanjuola Roger who signed his certificate. Yesterday, Sunday August 29, 2021, this indomitable fighter, turned 60.
