February 2020

Yesterday, Mohammed Adoke, former Attorney General of Nigeria under Jonathan, got his freedom after four years of running, one month of detention in Dubai, his extradition, and nearly two months of detention by the EFCC. But he barely made it, thanks to the courage of Justice Binta Nyako. Adoke was granted bail last week by Justice Kutige at the FCT High Court. He met all the conditions of the bail granted by Kutige. To make sure they would not release him as ordered by Kutige, they charged him to a Federal High Court, having refused to release him on the fictional ground that he had not yet deposited his passport to the Court. It was obvious that the EFCC was playing a fast one by keeping the passport of Adoke and refusing to surrender it to court on frivolous technicality. But Nigeria must really be a wicked place. Why forget yourself and treat the former attorney general so shabbily? There were two dirty tricks the EFCC played against Adoke. First, they could have charged him together in the same court. But they chose to charge him partially in different courts, just to cause him to go through bail application twice. But the Federal High Court judge undercut that by granting him bail on the same terms and condition as the FCT High Court meaning that Adoke did not have to meet two separate sets of bail conditions. Second, part of the bail conditions granted by the FCT High Court was for Adoke to surrender his passport to the Court. But since the EFCC seized the passport when they arrested him on December 19, 2019, Adoke was not in possession of his passport and could not surrender the passport. And EFCC refused to surrender it claiming that the order to surrender the passport was not directed to the EFCC, but to Adoke. That shows you how dishonest and vindictive the EFCC officials could be. In the end, they undermine confidence in the system. They held Adoke because "he has not yet surrendered his passport to the court" even though the reason he could not do so was because the EFCC was with the passport and refused to give it back to him. However, Justice Nyako cut through the game by ordering the EFCC to surrender the passport immediately. This kind of game confirms that almost every aspect of Nigerian law enforcement is driven by corruption and personal political motive. Adoke did it to others, and now he receives the same treatment.

You know I like to tell you the truth, you hate me for it. But I leave it in the hand of God. As unfair as the proscription of IPOB may be, as unjust as it may be; once an organization is proscribed, you cannot do anything (even hold a meeting of members) with the name of such organization. In fact, it becomes illegal to be a member of such organization. Whatever government that unjustly proscribed you will unjustly arrest your members and unjustly imprison them. That's just the reality of the situation. When IPOB became proscribed, all efforts should be directed toward unproscribing it. Don't just ignore it and try to move on as if nothing happened. Everybody expected IPOB to hire a very capable legal team to fight the proscription. But instead, they continued with the relatively light weight lawyer Ejiofor on such serious matter. Alternatively, while fighting to unproscribe IPOB, IPOB leaders could have adopted another name such as Biafran Peoples Movement. It will take time before that would be banned. That way, they will always be operating under a name that has not been proscribed. So, how do you expect that after banning IPOB the same government would allow you to gather in such name? I would have been surprised. Having said that, I totally disapprove of the manner the police and military have been going about it. They should have declared their position on IPOB gatherings all along. Don't leave it uncertain what will happen under certain conditions and make it appear that all you want to stop is the burial. Also, the confusion over military operation or police operation over the matter shows a very confused government. And the police choice of describing itself as the elephant dancing in a crowd of people is quite unfortunate and it depicts the character of the Nigerian police as a force of oppression. Note that Mr. Ene Okon, the Police Commissioner for Abia State  (apparently a Biafran) said: “They (Afaraukwu community) should tell IPOB not go near the area, let alone participating in the burial". He further said. "Whoever thinks along that line is fooling himself. IPOB will dance during the burial and the police elephants will dance too." He insisted that if members of IPOB were seen anywhere around the burial venue, the police would scatter the burial. With such tone, it is clear that the police want to monitor closely the burial. Strategically considered, this will help Kanu in the long run. More people will see him as the symbol of resistance against bad and oppressive system. And eventually, he becomes a genuine leader of his followers.

On Friday, three officers of the Nigerian Army, two majors and a captain, were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to ten years in prison. It is reported that after their sentencing, one of them, Major Oseni, fled without a trace. This is yet another incident that undermines public confidence in the armed forces. Many will never believe that other officers did not help Major Oseni escape from custody. SUNDAY PUNCH had reported that the General Court Martial in Abuja on Friday sentenced Majors Oseni, Ogbemudia Osawe and Second Lieutenant Nuhu Dogary to 10 years’ each imprisonment for torturing Lance Corporal Collins to death. With the escape of Major Oseni, the military has mounted a manhunt to try to arrest him and a signal has been sent from the armed forces headquarters to all military formations and units in the country. The signal reads, “The GCM sitting at Army Headquarters Command Mess, Abuja, delivered a judgment on the case between the Nigerian Army versus Major A.A. Oseni, N/12127; Major O.U. Osawe, N/12004; Captain S.E. Amosu, N/13041; and Second Lieutenant N.B. Dogary, N/16390. The accused officers were charged with manslaughter, punishable under Section 105 of the AFA CAP A20 LFN 2004. “Findings: Captain Amosu, N/13041, was found not guilty and was discharged and acquitted, while Majors Oseni, Osawe and 2Lt Dogary were found guilty and awarded 10 years’ imprisonment. “However, after the pronouncement of judgement, the accused officers marched out of the court premises with Captain K.S. Chime, and proceeded to Captain J.E Akwaraonwu’s office. “Thereafter, Major Oseni took an excuse from Captain Chime to use the toilet. At about 7pm same day, Major Oseni was nowhere to be found. A thorough search was carried out within and outside the mess’ premises, but the accused was not found. “Meanwhile, Major Osawe and 2 Lt Dogary are currently under the Special Investigations Bureau’s custody pending further action. The Army Headquarters Garrrison has mounted a manhunt for the convicted officer. The Nigeria Police and DSS have also been contacted.”

  Four years ago, DPA shocked Nigerians when it declared that it was better to get a divorce than to die trying to stay married. That idea did not go down well with many Nigerians. And in the toxic atmosphere of social media, many took up arms to fight DPA. They ganged up to smear  the Founder of DPA and to destroy DPA. When all their efforts failed, they accused DPA leadership of destroying families. They called DPA anti-Christ, anti-God. They quoted the Bible wrongly to support the idea that there should be no divorce under any circumstance. But look at the statistics: (1) On February 5, 2020, Abuja High Court convicted and sentenced Eric Chigbor to death by hanging for killing his wife Jessica in an act of domestic violence. (2) On February 3, 2020, "a 17-year-old housewife, Rabi Rabi’u, who stabbed her husband, Shamsu Salisu, to death in Katsina State last Wednesday, has explained that a misunderstanding on who should first charge their mobile telephone led to a scuffle in which he died". She was convicted and sentenced to death. (3) On January 21, 2020, Maryam Sanda Bello, was convicted and sentenced to death by an Abuja High Court for killing her husband in an act of domestic violence. Judgment in these three cases occurred within the last two weeks in only two cities, out of hundreds of cities in Nigeria. You can easily know that in a year and all over the country you will have thousands of people dead and dying just because they did not get a divorce when they ought to. In the three cases listed above, three people are dead already and three more people are scheduled to die also. That makes it six people to die in other to avoid divorcing three marriages. In order words, saving 3 marriages became more important than saving 6 lives. Compare the above with a case in Enugu yesterday. The High Court of Enugu State granted divorce to a lady. Her husband abandoned her and their children and abused her for years. She came to DPA. We saw that the marriage was irretrievably broken. We assisted her. She got divorce yesterday. Today she is alive and her husband (now ex husband) is alive. Not a single life was lost. So we helped destroy one marriage in order to save two lives. But our opponents and attackers would rather lose two lives in order to save one marriage. Unfortunately, you can't save any marriage by losing a life. Well, it is up to you to agree with us or not. There is only one thing we will never accept from you - do not come into this forum to insult us. We want to work with like-minded people in DPA. We don't need the distracting and annoying people who seek to detail our mission. We have a mission, after all.   NOTE: The likely reason a police officer would kill a suspect in his custody is to cover up the fact that the officer was involved in the crime.