The youth wing of Ohanaeze Ndigbo has condemned the assault on Igbo women who were on peaceful protest in Owerri, Imo State, by security agents, describing it as cruel and barbaric.
The group warned that its members will no longer tolerate a similar situation, in which Igbo land is besieged and stampeded by the army, police and the Department of State Services (DSS), in a bid to arrest and silence Igbo people, who have not committed any crime.
The Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Wing, Okey Nwachukwu, who addressed newsmen in Umuahia yesterday, said it was against all conventional laws for peaceful protesters to be attacked, humiliated and ruthlessly treated like criminals.
“Igbo youths categorically state that any further attacks on our people will be resisted, and we urge President Muhammadu Buhari to, as a matter of necessity, call security agencies to order,” he said.
The youth group asked security agencies to direct their focus on dealing with the Fulani herdsmen terrorising the country instead of trampling on human rights of Igbo sons and daughters.
In a related development, the Igbo youths also reiterated their stand to resist any attempt to discredit, intimidate or harass the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu and other notable Igbo sons and daughters.
I have just read the attached Press Release from your Office lamenting the renewed hostilities between Ohaneze Ndi Igbo and the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB.
I have listened carefully to many of your speeches and I am impressed by your understanding of the issues. Inside me, I do not believe that you and many of the Igbo leaders in Ohaneze deliberately mean any harm to the Igbo people. I can confidently say that you have intended to play the role of a father trying to protect his children from harm.
But you realise that you must be seen to be doing that and that intentions are not enough.
But your greatest failing has been in communication. You have been called upon to lead Igbo people at one of the most critical periods in our history second only to the period of the Genocidal War against Biafra. It was not a civil war. There was nothing civil about that war. As you know too well, the Igbo people are facing a battle for our very survival as a people. The level of hatred against the Igbo person has now exceeded 1966 levels. We face a daily barrage of abuse both in the North and West. We have totally been excluded from the running of the affairs of Nigeria. This is probably the only case in history where decisions affecting fifty million people are made without their participation. Our people are being suffocated from every direction.
The whole Igboland has been turned into one huge concentration camp with military and police checkpoints every other mile. Our people are being harassed and humiliated on a daily basis. Just yesterday, women carrying out a peaceful demonstration in Owerri for the release of IPOB Leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and his elderly parents and for Biafran Referendum were shot at, subjected to tear gas, huddled to the bushes and subjected to indignities. Those women are our mothers and wives and sisters. The irresponsible reaction of the police could easily have sparked an inferno that could have spread far and wide. It is becoming increasingly difficult to appeal to the younger generation to turn the other cheek when they are slapped. Demonstrators who are not causing any violence should be left alone.
Just three days ago, thirty-eight partly decomposed bodies of very healthy Igbo youths probably all in their late teens and twenties were discovered dumped in the bushes following the military invasion of Igboland last September 2017. Hundreds of unarmed Igbo youth were massacred during that invasion. Those young men were unarmed and plying the badly dilapidated roads of Igboland trying to eke out a living for themselves and their families. Those young men were mostly graduates without any jobs. And the response of President Buhari and his army was to kill them after torture fully documented and cut short their lives even before they had started. Young disaffected Northern youths going by the name Boko Haram who are heavily armed with AK47s and rocket launchers are as much as possible captured, disarmed, detained and soon after released by the same army. Why are Igbo youth being massacred with impunity? Does Igbo life not matter to anybody?
You can easily see why the young men of Igboland and indeed Biafra are very disconnected from the Nigerian state and very unhappy. The evils perpetrated by the Nigerian state against the Igbo people and Biafra are many. Biafra yes and there is nothing strange or new about that name. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to come to our part of the world in the 14th Century. When they came, they met a vast stretch of land referred to as Biafra. Biafra stretched from the confluence of Rivers Niger and Benue to the North, the Kumba Region in Western Cameroon to the East, the Atlantic Ocean and Equatorial Guinea to the South and the land inhabited by the Yoruba tribe to the West. They called the Gulf they discovered there the Gulf of Biafra. This Gulf guided explorers for centuries. Gowon and Obasanjo renamed it as the Gulf of Bonny to their eternal shame. This brief history explains why the Portuguese sided with Biafra, truth and justice in 1967 notwithstanding the odds against Biafra.
As matters stand, Igbos are fearful for their lives outside Eastern Nigeria. Even in Igboland, Fulani herdsmen are threatening to attack at anytime. Simultaneously, the Nigerian Army are threatening to resume their invasion of Igboland. At present, Igbos are completely at the mercy of of these Fulani soldiers. Igbos have no protection whatsoever. The determination of the Fulani to takeover Igboland with maximum force, seize our lands and Islamise us is real and in full gear. This same Fulani people have had this agenda of conquest all along while we were fooled and cajoled into believing in One Nigeria.
Both you and I must express our appreciation to our youth represented by IPOB for the peace and decorum with which they have conducted themselves. There is hardly a country where they are not represented and yet not one incident or violence has been reported over the years notwithstanding very serious provocation by Nigerian security forces, police and unprovoked attack by the military against IPOB and its Leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in which so many people were massacred and himself and his elderly parents taken to unknown destinations till this day.
It is sad to note that neither yourself nor the leadership of Ohaneze raised any voice to protect your children from cold blooded massacre. Instead, you maintained your silence which could easily be interpreted as a tacit support for the massacre. I was personally shocked at your silence and the silence of the governors of the so called South East. That alone amounted to an abomination in Igboland, to be seen to side with the murderers of hundreds of your children. To make a terrible situation unbearable, the same Nigerian Army invited you and the governors to a meeting in Enugu which issued a statement that IPOB had been proscribed. This was too insensitive.
You can see why the young men and women are unhappy with the role Ohaneze has played or neglected to play. It is not enough that you love the Igbo. You must be seen by your actions that you love the Igbo.
When Lord Harcourt and Lord Lugard amalgamated Northern and Southern Nigeria on 1st January 1914, it was for British Colonial convenience and their desire to pass the financial burden of running Northern Nigeria to Southern Nigeria since Northern Nigeria had nothing. That burden has now continued for one hundred and four years. Is that state of affairs going to continue indefinitely? Would the North have accepted Amalgamation for this long if the parasitic relationship was reversed? In any event, the Amalgamation Proclamation itself stated that it would last for one hundred years. That period expired on 1st January 2014. Therefore, morally, legally and in every respect, our people have a right to demand Independence.
It is unhelpful that the Fulani and their misguided supporters believe that brute force can be used to hold seventy million people down and keep us in Nigeria against our will. We have contributed more than any other group to make One Nigeria work. We have lost six and a half million people to make One Nigeria work. But One Nigeria is not working. One Nigeria has never worked. One Nigeria will never work. The reason is simply because the Fulani idea of One Nigeria is totally different from our own idea of One Nigeria.
The Fulani think and have declared in no uncertain terms and acts that One Nigeria means one Nigeria that they have conquered from the Sahel to the Atlantic. To the Fulani, One Nigeria means unfettered access to our ancient ancestral lands to build new Fulani cities, instal their Emir and subjugate the native population to the Sokoto Caliphate and replace Christianity with Islam and our legal system with Sharia Law. That is their idea of One Nigeria and it does not in any way resemble our idea of One Nigeria. The Fulani will never give up this vision. They see Igboland as the only obstacle they have to the sea. They are impatient to conquer Igboland and invite the Fulani Confraternity in West Africa to come and join them in their latest conquest.
You are a learned man Chief Nwodo. You understand these matters. You know that is what they did in Hausa land and completely destroyed Hausa identity. They did the same in Kwara. These things are historical facts.
Now, Chief Nwodo, do you want Igboland to be the next? You can easily see that the consequences of what is happening today are too far reaching to be taken lightly or to be reduced to talk about your image and reputation and how they are being ‘tarnished’ by IPOB. I wouldn’t mind my image tarnished a thousand times if my people become free in the process.
Chief Nwodo, there was a time Igbo people could consider restructuring but that time has passed. It would be suicidal to consider that option when we have become fully aware of the Fulani Agenda of Conquest. That option will merely buy a little time and postpone the days of evil being unleashed upon our children.
What the Igbo people want is the ability to protect our frontiers, to protect our territorial waters, to protect our airspace, to make our own laws, to practice the religion of our choice, to decide the content of the education our children receive, to take responsibility for the infrastructural development of Igboland and to decide who our external friends would be. We just want to be free. What is so terrible about that?
So many nations have divided along homogeneous lines and released all the energy previously consumed by distrust, hate, rivalry and endless conflict. Our case is not unique in any way. Self determination is a sacred article of the United Nations Charter. We the people of Igboland and Biafra have decided to invoke that Article and assert our rights under it. I am mindful of your declaration in Lagos in 2017 to fight against this Objective.
As the name Ohaneze implies, the Oha comes first before the Eze. In Igboland, the Eze follows the people unlike in some other cultures. What you consider right has become so radically opposed to what your people want. Even God told Samuel to listen to the people of Israel and give them what they wanted, that is, a king. You have already given our people your best. You must do the honourable thing now and step aside forthwith with your entire executive. A new Igbo leadership is urgently needed to steer the Igbo ship during these turbulent times. That new leadership must unite behind IPOB because the Igbo people need to speak with one voice.
I have always restrained from joining issues in the media with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and this is based on my respect for him. However, I will not allow him to create a wrong, false and mischievous impression about the reasons for my decision to exit the All Progressives Congress (APC) and present his prejudice as facts for public consumption.
I have been consistent in my complaints to all leaders of the APC, including Tinubu, that a situation where the National Assembly is not constructively engaged or carried along in key policy decisions, particularly those that will eventually require legislative approval, is not in the best interest of the nation. No genuine leader of the legislature will be comfortable that the Presidency will simply write a terse letter to the National Assembly on key issues which the federal legislature is expected to later deliberate upon and give its approval. The Buhari administration consistently treats the legislature with contempt and acts as if the lawmaking body should be an appendage of the Executive. To me, this is unacceptable.
In the same way, I find it very objectionable that many stakeholders who worked strenuously to get the administration into office have now been excluded in the government and not consulted on key decisions as necessary and expected. In fact, some of them are treated as pariahs. A party that ignores justice, equity and inclusion as basic pre-conditions for peace, unity and stability cannot sustain its membership and leadership.
Let me redirect the attention of the former Governor of Lagos State to the aspect of my July 31, 2018, statement announcing my exit from APC in which I emphasized that the decision “has been inescapably imposed on me by certain elements and forces within the APC who have ensured that the minimum conditions for peace, cooperation, inclusion and a general sense of belonging did not exist”.
In that statement, I further noted that those APC elements “have done everything to ensure that the basic rules of party administration, which should promote harmonious relations among the various elements within the party were blatantly disregarded. All governance principles which were required for a healthy functioning of the party and the government were deliberately violated or undermined. And all entreaties for justice, equity and fairness as basic precondition for peace and unity, not only within the party, but also the country at large, were simply ignored, or employed as additional pretext for further exclusion. The experience of my people and associates in the past three years is that they have suffered alienation and have been treated as outsiders in their own party. Thus, many have become disaffected and disenchanted. At the same time, opportunities to seek redress and correct these anomalies were deliberately blocked as a government-within-a-government had formed an impregnable wall and left in the cold, everyone else who was not recognized as “one of us”. This is why my people, like all self-respecting people would do, decided to seek accommodation elsewhere”.
Tinubu himself will recall that during the various meetings he had with me at the time he was pursuing reconciliation within the APC, I raised all the above issues. I can also vividly recall that he himself always expressed his displeasure with the style of the government and also mentioned that he had equally suffered disrespect from the same government which we all worked to put in office. I also made the point that whatever travails I have gone through in the last three years belong to the past and will not shape my decisions now and in the future.
However, during those meetings, the point of disagreement between Tinubu and I is that while I expressed my worries that there is nothing on ground to assure me that the administrative style and attitude would change in the next four years in a manner that will enable us to deliver the positive changes we promised to our people, he (Tinubu) expressed a strong opinion that he would rather ‘support a Buhari on the hospital stretcher’ to get a second term because in 2023, power will shift to the South-west. This viewpoint of Tinubu’s was not only expressed to me but to several of my colleagues. So much for acting in national interest.
It is clear that while my own decision is based on protecting the collective national interest, Tinubu will rather live with the identified inadequacies of the government for the sake of fulfilling and preserving his presidential ambition in 2023. This new position of Tinubu has only demonstrated inconsistency — particularly when one reviews his antecedents over the years.
Again, let me reiterate my position that my uncertain and complex relationship with Tinubu has been continually defined by the event of 2014 when myself and other leaders of the APC opposed the Muslim-Muslim ticket arrangement about to be foisted on the APC for the 2015 polls. It should be noted that he has not forgotten the fact that I took the bull by the horns and told him that in the interest of the country, he should accept the need for the party to present a balanced ticket for the 2015 General Elections in terms of religion and geo-political zones. Since that time he has been very active; plotting at every point to undermine me, both within and outside the National Assembly.
It is a surprise to me that Asiwaju Tinubu is still peddling the falsehood about the fact that my defection is about automatic ticket and sharing of resources. Members of the public will recall that when the issue of my decision to quit APC came to the fore and many APC leaders were holding meetings with me, a newspaper owned by the same Tinubu published a false report about the promise of automatic tickets, oil blocks and other benefits. I immediately rebutted their claims and categorically stated that I never discussed any such personal and pecuniary benefits with anybody. My challenge that anybody who has contrary facts should come forward with them still remains open.
It should be known that Democracy is a system that allows people to freely make their choices. It is my choice that I have decided to join others to present a viable alternative platform for Nigerians in the coming elections. Tinubu and leaders of the APC had better respect this decision or lawfully deal with it. As for me, Allah gives power to whom He wishes. Human beings can only aspire and strive to fulfill their aspirations.
Signed:
Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, CON President of the Senate
Former UN Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kofi Annan, has died at age 80, his Foundation confirmed, on Saturday.
Annan, who was born in Ghana in 1938, served as the seventh UN Secretary-General, from 1997 to 2006, and was the first to rise from within the ranks of the United Nations staff.
He had been a member of The Elders, a group of global leaders working for human rights, since it was founded in 2007. In 2013, he became its chairman.
The Kofi Annan Foundation confirmed his death with “immense sadness” in a statement posted on Twitter.
It is with immense sadness that the Annan family and the Kofi Annan Foundation announce that Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Laureate, passed away peacefully on Saturday 18th August after a short illness…
Annan passed away peacefully Saturday morning after a short illness, with his wife Nane and their three children by his side during his final days, it said.
It paid tribute to Annan as a “global statesman and a deeply committed internationalist who fought throughout his life for a fairer, more peaceful world.”
The UN Migration Agency tweeted: “Today we mourn the loss of a great man, a leader, and a visionary.”
Annan was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the United Nations in 2001 “for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.”
Annan was descended from tribal chiefs on both sides of his family. After studying in Ghana and Macalester College in St. Paul, in the US state of Minnesota, he joined the United Nations in 1962 as a low-ranking officer with the World Health Organisation in Geneva.
He thought he would stay only a few years but ended up spending almost his entire working life with the organisation.
Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, on Thursday, described as ‘baseless, mischievous and irresponsible’ the rumour making the rounds that he is making some moves against non-indigenes, particularly the Igbo in the state.
Speaking through the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Kehinde Bamigbetan, the governor said the reports were nothing but absolute falsehood and a mere figment of the imagination of unscrupulous persons who concocted it.
The governor was quoted to have outlawed the position of Eze Ndi-Igbo in the state and making other moves against non-indigenes, just as he was said to have described Lagos not as a colonial settlement, but owned by the Yoruba.
Describing the contents of the alleged report as laughable and ridiculous, Ambode said he had clearly emphasised at the inception of his administration that he would run a government of inclusion regardless of tribe, colour or creed.
“While we would have opted to totally ignore such crass report, we have chosen to set the records straight for unsuspecting public who might be tempted to believe such falsehood.
“For emphasis, there is no record anywhere of the governor making such remarks and we dare the faceless authors to come out with any evidence otherwise. This is certainly the handiwork of enemies of Lagos State whose sole aim is to distort the existing harmonious relationship among ethnic groups in the state,” he added.
“They have totally failed in this attempt. Besides, in this season of politics, it is expected that those seeking to gain mileage would stop at nothing and cling to any straw just to score cheap points.”
While urging the public to disregard the report in its entirety, he also urged security agencies to investigate the mischief-makers behind it and mete out appropriate sanctions on them in accordance with the law.
Lawal Musa Daura, Director General of Department of State Security (DSS), sacked by Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, allegedly, on the orders of President Muhammadu Buhari who is holidaying in London, and detained, on Tuesday, August 7, 2018, has been moved to DSS detention facility located in Gwarimpa, Abuja. This followed his temporary release, on Thursday, by the police.
After being dismissed following his summon to the Presidency, he was arrested by the police and detained at a Force Headquarters facility in Garki Area 11. There, he suddenly took ill as a result of the trauma he suffered following his ignominious fall from power. His blood pressure was said to have shot up. As result, they promptly sent for his drugs from his office at DSS headquarters and his home. Sources say he is hypertensive and undergoing some treatments.
Reports show that his initial statement to the high ranking, senior police officers assigned to interrogate him, shortly after his detention, is that he acted based on instruction from some principal officers in the Presidency. They included a retired Army General who is a Minister and a principal aide to the president. This aspect was however missing in the interim report summit-ed to VP Osinbajo by the police.
But following his release by the police on Thursday, he was taken into what has been described in security circles as “protective custody” by the DSS. Investigation shows that his movement to a DSS detention apartment at Gwarimpa area of Abuja was done in order to enable his family who lives in Gwarimpa, not too far from the facility, to have access to him at any chosen time. But that has not stopped Nigerians from calling for his head.
“Without a doubt, the summary dismissal, last week, of Alhaji Lawal Daura, Director-General, Department, State Security, came as a big surprise to many people. It seemed to contradict the world order!,” Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar (Rtd), observed in a press statement yesterday.
“In the last three years, Lawal Daura had marched from one audacious act of impunity to another; had rudely defied the President, had routinely ignored court orders and seemed all but successful in carving out, for himself, a government within a government in Nigeria. There was hardly any observer of the turbulent Nigerian political scene over the last several years who still believed that Lawal Daura was subject to any laws not to speak of official code of behaviour.
“Given all the distress created by the actions of Lawal Daura and those caused through his refusal to act, the decision to sack him did not come a moment too soon. And yet, in the interest of our democracy, in order to guard against unexpected threats and conspiracies, the action taken by the acting President must not stop halfway. The government should seek to discover the motives as well as the explanation for some of those crazy maneuvers, many of which simply beggars belief.
The questions should include the following:
(1) Where and in what condition are all the assets handed over to Lawal Daura by the immediate past D-G, SS, Mr. Ita Ekpeyong?
(2) What are the reasons why Lawal Daura deployed SS operatives and prevented EFCC personnel from searching the residences of former D-G, SS, Mr Ekpeyong and former D-G, NIA, Mr Oke?
(3) What is the explanation for the raid on the farm belonging to Ibrahim Magu, Chairman, EFCC, which led to loss of live?
(4) Was it not true that Lawal Daura moved to seize and appropriate over forty three million US dollar NIA funds if he was not prevented from doing so by the National Security Adviser?
(5) Why did Lawal Daura continuously and in blatant defiance of the President send false reports to the Nigerian Senate that frustrated the confirmation of Ibrahim Magu as substantive Chairman of the EFCC?
(6) Why did he continue to ignore court orders allowing several people detained by him to be released on bail?
His rise to power
Born in Daura, Katsina State on August 5, 1953, Daura retired from the DSS in 2013, having reached the statutory retirement age of 60. But on July 2, 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed him to head the organisation after his predecessor, Ita Ekpeyong was removed under controversial circumstances. Before his sack, Daura was arguably one of the most powerful persons in Nigeria and was alleged to be a prominent member of the cabal in President Buhari’s government.
After he emerged as the new boss of the security organisation, there were concerns of nepotism as many felt that the President could have appointed a new Director General from among the crop of highly qualified officers of the DSS. The sixth Director General of the security arm, one of the three security agencies created out of the defunct National Security Organisation in 1986, he began his career in 1982 and rose through the ranks to the position of director.
In 2003, he was appointed, Deputy Director, Presidential Communication, Command and Control Centre at the Presidential Villa, a position he held till 2007. He also served as director at various times in many states of the Federation including Kano, Sokoto, Edo, Lagos, Osun and Imo. He attended Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, from 1977 – 1980 and various professional courses in institutions at home and abroad, including the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, (NIPSS) Kuru.
His many sins
Investigations revealed that while Daura basked in the influence and power he wielded while in office, some of the actions he took riled many. He was reported to have stepped on some powerful toes. Not only that, some of the actions he took were said to have embarrassed the Federal Government.
Some of these include the invasion of Akwa-Ibom state government house on September 3, 2015, by DSS operatives. The incident, which instantly put Daura in the limelight was roundly condemned. DSS operatives numbering 48 ransacked the Government House without a search warrant. It was an illegal exercise, and many prominent Nigerians including the state governor, Emmanuel Udom, condemned the action.
Irked by what happened, Udom was reported to have put a call across to President Buhari to express his displeasure. But his efforts and the ensuing public outcry didn’t deter Daura. Rather he got DSS into more controversies. About a year after, his operatives raided the homes of some judges in Abuja and Port Harcourt at night. Nigerians cried foul over the illegal raids, which were carried out without search warrants. But as usual, Daura had no apology to offer.
Speaking through one of DSS officers while trying to justify the raids on the judges’ houses, Daura was reported to have claimed that the crackdown was aimed at instilling discipline, and sanity in the judiciary. But investigations later revealed that the judges were targeted as a retaliatory measure over what DSS perceived as the judges unsavoury rulings and harsh stance against the security service.
For instance, one of the judges, Mr. Nnamdi Dimgba, whose brother was mishandled during the DSS raid had on July 22, 2016 tongue-lashed the organisation for failing to bring Air Commodore Umar Mohammed who was in its custody to court for hearing.
Also Justice Muazu Pindiga, former Chairman of the Rivers State Gubernatorial Petitions Tribunal, was arrested by DSS on allegations of bribery and corruption. The judge was however said to be a victim of witch-hunt by the security outfit as he was reported to have rebuffed overtures to dangle justice in a predetermined outcome.
The non-confirmation of Mr. Ibrahim Magu as the substantive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission by the Senate also had Daura’s hand in it. He allegedly wrote a damning report that swayed the Senate against clearing the appointment of Magu.
In March 2016, he ordered the invasion of Ekiti State House of Assembly by DSS operatives. This illegal action, which drew public uproar prompted the House of Representatives to summon Daura to appear before it to state reasons for the deed. In August, 2015 the Senate also invited him to clarify the role of DSS in a matter having to do with the Rivers State Election Tribunal in which the operatives detained Gesila Khan, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s State Resident Electoral Commissioner, over the 2015 general election.
He was also reported to have influenced Abubakar Malami, Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation to meet with Abdulrasheed Maina, a man who had earlier been declared wanted by the Police over pension fund scam. Daura’s alleged arranged meeting with Malami led to the latter’s secret return to the civil service.
His other sins include alleged disrespect of court orders on ex-National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki, and the popular Islamic cleric Ibrahim el-Zakzaky. He was also reported to be fond of using security reasons to determine who to see or not to see or pray with President Buhari. His frosty relationship and alleged refusal to take orders from the National Security Adviser, Gen. Mohammed Babagana Monguno, was also said to be one of his undoing.
It is not only the National Security Adviser that Daura disrespects, Saturday Sun learnt, it is a common knowledge within the Presidency that he disagreed with heads of other security agencies to the extent that it was difficult to know who he officially reports to. He was said to be so power-drunk to the extent of even overruling President Buhari and Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, on some issues.
A typical example was $43.45 million recovered at Osborne Towers in Ikoyi, Lagos. When the President appointed Prof. Osinbajo to head the probe panel, Daura was said to have openly disagreed with some recommendations in the committee’s report and even later raised a curious memo citing why security funds cannot be probed.
The media also got a raw deal in Daura’s hand.when Tony Ezimakor, the Abuja Bureau Chief of Daily Independent who wrote an investigative feature story on the release of the abducted Dapchi girls in Yobe State last year was arrested on the orders of Daura for revealing details the DSS found uncomfortable.
The accreditation of The Punch Aso Rock correspondent, Olalekan Adetayo, withdrawn over a year ago has also not been restored because of security reasons cited by Daura in spite of intervention by some media aides of President Buhari. Boasting about the powers he wields, Daura was once reported to have said at a gathering of media editors that if he wants to cause crisis in Nigeria, he can do so within five minutes.
His Fall
On Tuesday, August 7, he was sacked on the orders of Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, for superintending the unauthorised cordoning off of the National Assembly by hooded DSS operatives. On that day, scores of legislators and hundreds of legislative staff were locked out of the National Assembly complex by the operatives. The move was linked to some intrigues to forcibly remove key presiding officers of the Senate, including the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu.
The development did not go down well with the Acting President who was said to have gotten approval of President Buhari to sack Daura. He (Osinbajo) later ordered him arrested and placed under house arrest until further notice.
Fresh troubles for the spymaster
Aside his detention, Our Reporters learnt from a highly placed source that his biggest headache could be the government plan to investigate the extent of his management of the N17 billion said to have been allocated to the security organisation in the last days of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. The arrest by EFCC, of Ekpeyong, the former DSS boss, opens another front in the investigation. It was part of the discovery by the arms probe set up by the present administration.
We also learnt that the effort to investigate the subterfuge, connivance and dirty deals involving millions of Euros allegedly linked to the head of a Nigerian security outfit which was involved in the payment of ransom to Boko Haram insurgents for the release of the Dapchi schoolgirls in Yobe State could further open a can of worms in the Daura saga.
As a result, a group, Campaign Against Corruption and Bad Governance (CACOBAG) had petitioned the EFCC to unravel the mystery behind the money said to have been traced to two bank accounts at Liechtenstein bearing the name AUWALU KALLAMU. Auwalu and Kallamu, it was learnt, are the Arabic synonyms of Nigerian names. Saturday Sun had earlier published that based on a foreign intelligence, the EFCC may soon begin investigation into the true owner of GMBH bank account no.32570021 with Lamda private bank, Liechtenstein under the pseudonym, Auwalu Kallamu as the sole signatory.
Daura’s kinsmen speak: ‘Let’s wait and see’
Hold your peace! Let’s wait and see. Those are the pieces of advice that Daura’s kinsmen and friends would want Nigerians to heed on the matter of his dismissal, arrest, detention and alleged investigation into his past activities. In a chat with Saturday Sun, Senator Abba Ali, the Second Republic member of the National Assembly, that represented Katsina/Dutsinma Senatorial district under the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) says that what happened is a mistake any of us could have made including those who are calling for his head. “I met Lawal Daura about two to three weeks ago and my impression is that he is a dedicated person but we are all human beings and we are bound to make mistakes,” he said. “I believe he made a mistake but it should serve as a lesson to others knowing that if you make a mistake, you may not be spared.”
Ali, a classmate of Buhari and with whom they were pioneer students at Katsina Middle School, way back in 1953, however, defended the President’s directive to Osinbajo to sack Daura. “What happened is unfortunate because, one thing I know is that Buhari never spares anybody if that person does anything wrong,” he noted. “I am sure the Federal Government has every reason to justify the action it took. The President actually trusted Lawal Daura but it is unfortunate that it has happened. What we hope is that this kind of thing should not happen again in the future. I am sure government had reasons to take the action as quickly as possible. If they did not have anything against him, government would not have acted the way it did.”
Malam Adna Nahabu, a Daura resident and close ally of the sacked DG counseled patience and caution for gloating Nigerians. “For now, any comment may tend to preempt the ongoing investigations into the matter,” he warned. “I think we should wait for the outcome of the investigations. I know Lawal Daura very well and we meet very often. From my interactions with him, I know him to be a very good person and he is well-known in the intelligence circles having been there in intelligence all his life and he is well-groomed in intelligence matters. It is only the outcome of the investigation that will give us a clue regarding what actually happened.
Asked if what he thinks about the government action, was it hasty, he answered: “As decision maker, you take decisions under emergency and you also take decisions under normal circumstances that may require normal bureaucracy. The entrance to the National Assembly was blocked which may have sent wrong signals to the international community and in that circumstance, I do not think it required bureaucratic approach for government to have taken the decision it took. What matters most is the circumstances under which a decision maker takes a particular decision.
The blatant violation of the federal character in the employment at the DSS speak to the inauspicious stewardship of Lawal Daura as the boss of the DSS.
There is always something queasy when a president reaches back into the past to resurrect the career of a retired officer to head an organisation like the Department of State Services (DSS) swarming with ambitious officers. Yet when Lawal Musa Daura was appointed Director-General of the DSS by President Muhammadu Buhari in July 2015, not one murmur of protest was heard.
The President’s preference for ‘home boys’ was well-known, but despite misgivings about nepotism, Nigerians felt the President was entitled to those he could trust for a position like the Director-General of the DSS
On hindsight, he was manifestly a wrong choice especially in a democratic dispensation. He had no regard for the Constitution, as he had little consideration for individual liberties and no respect for the laws of the land. He spent much of his career during Nigeria’s lengthy military dictatorship. He retired as a deputy director. To be recalled from retirement and appointed Director-General was a huge quantum leap. He could not make a successful transition. Last week, however, Lawal Daura led his elite security force into an unusual operation which, for all practical purposes, shut down the National Assembly which, finally, cost him his job and, perhaps, his freedom.
Details of how he ended up on that ignominious patch is still sketchy but his counterpart in the Nigeria Police, the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, was referring to him unsympathetically as a “principal suspect” under arrest who would need further interrogation and whose homes, phones and computers need to be searched for more evidence of his crimes. It was the considered view of the IGP that Mr. Lawal “may be acting the script of some highly placed politicians to achieve some selfish political goals hence his unilateral and unlawful decision to invade the National Assembly complex.”
The statute establishing the DSS, the National Security Act (Decree No. 19) of 1986, entrusts the agency with the responsibility of curtailing insecurity in the nation. Mr. Daura, however, seems to be unable to do the job according to the law. Section 35 (4)(5) of the 1999 Constitution guarantees that anyone arrested and detained “shall be brought before a court of law” within 24 hours and tried in a court of competent jurisdiction within a radius of 40 kilometres or 48 hours if the court is farther than 40 kilometres. He or she must be released if not tried within a period of two months from the date of his arrest if he is still in custody, or three months if he has been released on bail. Lawal Daura has never demonstrated any respect for those constitutional provisions.
The cases of former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, who have now been detained for more than two and a half years, and others like them, have become scandals demonstrating how the DSS picks and chooses the court orders it obeys. Dasuki and el-Zakzaky have been grated bails many times by Nigerian courts, but the DSS has continued to detain them.
When he shut down the National Assembly with armed DSS agents who wore hoods signaling a grievous situation, Nigerians were so alarmed because it looked like the end of the democratic experiment. The TV footage had all the appearances of a putsch. Daura did a poor job in the DSS during his tenure. There was not a single successful investigation of note done by the agency. When the agency arrested several Nigerian judges, including justices of the Supreme Court, we had thought the agency would have done a thorough job before embarking on such high stake arrests. None of the judges was found guilty of anything. After nearly 10 years of the terrorism of Boko Haram, Nigerians had expected DSS to have been able to get into the inner workings of the terrorists. Boko Haram continues its bombing campaigns in the North-East region and still keeps in captivity more than 110 Chibok girls kidnapped since 2014.
There could be no doubt that the Daura-led DSS had a personal axe to grind with the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, having written two unproven negative reports to forestall his confirmation by the Senate. The IGP’s report on the DSS last week confirmed that there was no love lost between the Daura-led DSS and the Nigeria Police. If the issue is agency rivalry, it has been at the expense of the nation. Indeed, the Daura-led DSS was indeed covering his fellow Director-General at the National Intelligence Agency, Ayo Oke, who had squirreled nearly $45 million into a private flat in Ikoyi, Lagos, unknown to any of his directors.
Daura’s unwarranted arrest of Ekiti legislators in 2016, hostile search and seizures by his agents in Cross River State, the raid on Akwa Ibom Government House in 2015, the harassment of journalists Jones Abiri, his prolonged detention, and the arrest of Tony Ezimakor of the Independent newspaper, the blatant violation of the federal character in the employment at the DSS, and so many other issues, speak to the inauspicious stewardship of Lawal Daura as the boss of the DSS. We look forward to an independent and transparent inquiry into his stewardship and the circumstances surrounding his shutting down of the National Assembly.
Did you know that American House Speaker Paul Ryan, second in line to the presidency of the United States, sleeps in his office?
Before he was elected speaker, Paul was a Congressman representing a congressional District in Wisconsin.
In all those years that he has served in Washington, he’s been sleeping on an an Air Mattress in his office floor since his wife and kids are back in Wisconsin. Paul says that he can only sleep on a bed if his wife is sleeping on it or rent an apartment if his wife and kids are living in it.
When he was elected House Speaker, a position that comes with a Mansion, he chose not to live in it since his wife and kids did not want to move to D.C. But it’s not just Paul Ryan who sleeps in his office in D.C.
Out of the 435 American legislators (Congressmen and Senators) serving their constituents in Washington, 50 of them shower, eat, and sleep in their offices.
In an Interview with the AFP News Agency, Congressman Tim Walberg from Michigan said that he’s been sleeping on his office floor since he was elected in 2007. Why? He says it’s a good way to save money since house rents in Washington are ridiculously high.
He also had this to say: “I am not a king, a prince, or a Lord. The people who sent me here (Congress) are the people I serve. And I don’t ever want to get to a point where I believe that because I’m here, I’m better than them.”
Now, 200 legislators also share apartments. You got it right.
Three to Five Senators can come together, rent one apartment, share the costs, and live together. They can also buy one car and use it to drive together to work. Yes, these are Senators and Congressmen from the largest economy in the world sleeping in their offices, sharing apartments, and cars.
In America, only the Speakers of both Houses and Senior Congressional Leadership have personal security.
In Nigeria every MP’s first priority is a big car, a house, a personal bodyguard.
Even local assembly men/women are referred to as Honourable. Refuse to address him/her as such ,hell will break lose.
They live in mansion and own not less than 2 cars and you wonder why we are as we are as a dysfunctional country?
What the people of Nigeria need is a referendum to end this evil contraption called Nigeria and an emergence of the stifled nations within.
We CAN NOT be silent about it. He that is silent in the days of the adversity of the oppressed, is more guilty and has taken the side of the oppressor.
The Independent National Electoral Commission has budgeted a whopping sum of six billion naira to feed the officers of Nigerian Police that will participate in the 2019 general elections.
This was contained in the budget the commission presented to the House of Representatives.
The Chairman of the commission, Prof Mahmud Yakubu is currently facing questions from the members of House committee on INEC who are racing eyebrows on the sum.
Few days ago,REC ,INEC,in Anambra state told us that he had to pay a police officer to escort him around on the day of election.
The present structure of Nigeria is a time bomb.It is wickedness against humanity to retain the present structure of Nigeria.
Online Media Practitioners Association of Nigeria is shocked at the arrest of Samuel Ogundipe of PremiumTimes, and condemns strongly, his continued detention by the Nigerian police for refusing to give up his sources.
OMPAN joins other well meaning local and international organization to call for his immediate and unconditional release as well as unfreezing of his account.
OMPAN wonders why only Samuel Ogundipe was singled out for this unlawful, evil and undemocratic arrest when so many online and print media houses carried the story in question.
It is very strange that in a country that claims to be practicing democracy, a member of the fourth realm can be arrested and detained by the police without provocation.
OMPAN wants to stress that Mr Samuel Ogundipe was well within his rights to report the said letter and should not be held responsible for the inability of the Nigerian Police to manage its confidentiality or put a tight lid on all the sensitive documents it wants to keep away from the public.
The fact that Mr Samuel Ogundipe was exercising his constitutionally protected right as a journalist can never be overemphasized and not even the Nigerian police has the power to take that away from him.
OMPAN notes with chagrin that Nigeria is fast becoming a Banana republic because of the high handedness of the police and other security agencies and this is not acceptable in a democratic dispensation.
OMPAN wants to state very clearly that Nigerians can no longer tolerate this Military Junta style that the police is adopting to silence reporters and starting with the immediate and unconditional release of Samuel Ogundipe, the police must desist from further embarrassing Nigeria in the eye of the international community.
The Nigerian police has already inflicted a great deal of pain on innocent and law abiding Nigerians already and this must stop!
OMPAN recalls how SARS officers arrested, molested and compelled its members in Owerri to pay a huge bribe before matching them to an ATM to withdraw the bribe money or risk being implicated to a crime. But for the resourcefulness of the Journalists in procuring incontrovertible pictorial evidence of that event, they probably would have been held in similar fashion as Samuel Ogundipe.
This is unacceptable. The police must as a matter urgency retrace its footsteps and toe the path of civility and service to humanity as is commensurate with their profession the world over.
