While describing Sowore’s arrest as uncalled for, CNG said “To attempt to stop someone from associating freely, from enjoying his right to freedom of association or freedom of movement is totalitarian”.

The group’s spokesman, Sulaiman Abdulazeez, who featured on Channels Television on Monday added, “It is an attempt to suppress voices of dissent. This government has grown increasingly intolerant of opposition or criticism.”

Abdulazeez argued that Sowore’s arrest was an act of impunity, stressing that the incident “is about breaching people’s fundamental human rights; There is no point, the arrest is totally uncalled for.”

Sowore and four others were on Monday remanded at the Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja, the nation’s capital pending when their formal bail application will be heard Tuesday, January 5, 2020.

The former presidential candidate and four others are being arraigned by the Federal Government on three charges of criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly, and attempting to incite others, Sulaiman believes they have not committed any offence to warrant arrest and detention.

“You can only be arrested when you commit an offence and you have to establish an offence first before charging a person,” he insisted.

“We are not aware that there is any statue that has barred people, four people, from coming together for a candlelight celebration. Even if there is, that is ultra vires.”

Although they all pleaded not guilty to the charges, the prosecution alleged that the defendants were arrested with placards calling for a violent revolution against President Muhammadu Buhari.

Sowore was arrested by the police for leading a protest against bad governance on New Year’s eve in Abuja.

It was learnt that he had before the protest encouraged Nigerians on Twitter to hold a crossover protest by picking up a candle and a placard showing their grievances against the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

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The twisted giant of Africa was bleeding, while pockets of a few were bursting with dollars and nairas. Hardworking local rice growers did not have their own locals willing to consume their own products from their own soils. Their toils were soiled, a seeming cruse became a curse. Spelled by unknown curses, black people with rice from their own backyards prefer to enrich other nationals from contemporary less developed countries and continents of the world. It is pestilential and pitiable when a giant relies on dwarfs to feed.

Then, a revolutionary policy came up. Nigeria would close its borders to prevent importation of rice from other countries, among other aims. To the worst critic of this government decision, in a time like this, the decision albeit even temporary is yet revolutionary and out-of- the box from colonial dependency and undue attachment to foreign dogmatic taste for even the most basic needs. The beauties and attractions in banning imported rice cannot be ignored. Encouragement being given to local producers of rice cannot be quantified. The step will give these neglected farmers more impetus to produce the commodity, backed by ready buyers. Unemployment will be mopped up. Many hitherto unemployed and underemployed persons will embrace rice farming realizing the new prosperities and potentials embedded in Nigeria’s revolutionized rice project.

Savings of foreign currencies being used to import this product will go into conservations and savings. Huge amounts are already being saved in millions of dollars from partial closure of borders against rice smuggling. As at last count, close to 200 rice mills of various sizes had sprung up in many parts of Nigeria. The consciousness among nation – states  that each must produce what her citizens eat is gradually dawning of Nigeria and Nigerians. Spiral and massive engagement of human resources and ideals will come into play through the establishment of these rice mills. For many states, the revolution on the task of increasing their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) is right on course. Money missing roads into the pockets of politicians are being channeled towards productive activities in rice plantation, harvesting and sales. Interestingly, since the closure of Nigeria boarders against rice importation, kidnapping, banditry, terrorism and other forms of criminal activities had reduced along the axis of Nigeria’s borders. The Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank (CBN), Godwin Emefiele had correctly predicted the reduction of these criminal activities if the borders are closed, and these predictions are coming to pass.

It is not only about the rice revolution, but the clear pointers to a rising revolution in Nigeria. The socio – political atmosphere is scheduled to pick up revolutionary trends, if the Buhari administration can step up on any success being achieved in the rice revolution. Some emerging reforms on – going as regards corruption, judiciary, politics and in many areas cannot be swept under the carpet. Except the Buhari cabals are not keen to enshrine their names in the annals of good leadership, the best option for them is to ensure a sustained and better leadership, which will not draw the nation backwards. Going forward, the need is for good leadership which will close more borders; borders of underdevelopment, borders of nepotism, borders of inadequate infrastructural development, borders of hate, borders of insecurity, kidnapping and terrorism. Politics are not as being played in the 60s and 70s in Nigeria. The stakes are higher now, participants are more educated, enlightened and sophisticated, germane issues are now being raised, even if not totally addressed.

In the political rising revolution, more questions will be asked. For example, in Nigeria during the closing months in year 2019, both the EFCC and ICPC (anti – corruption agencies) are to participate in electoral fraud monitoring henceforth. This is to close border of vote buying. Or why should there be vote buying? Rising Revolution is not the Sowore model. Such are laden with errors and not strengthened by crafted strategies and deep reasonings. What revolution, at the onset of a fresh tenure of a government that has just won an election where you the zealous ‘revolutionary’ contested and lost. What revolution? If revolutions had been so easy, Nzeogu, Awolowo, Tai Solarin, Wole Soyinka, Ojukwu and others would have done so even more successfully in Nigeria with their highly cerebral brains and constituents. The rising revolution in Nigeria will succeed , as it is going to be engineered by scions, kiths and kind of renowned cabals in Nigeria, past and existing. It will be soon, it won’t be long.

So, it is not only about closing borders in a rice revolution. If thoroughly searchlight is beamed , fellow countrymen and women, it is a rising revolution.

The post Rice Revolution And Rising Revolution In Nigeria | By Ajibola Esuola first appeared on MegaIcon Magazine.

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The tragedy is reflected in the fact that we do not realize how, with Muhammadu Buhari, we are all in trouble, without a single exception. The tragedy is further compounded by those who, on account of party, ethnicity, politics or religion, have, since Friday, been excusing, legitimizing or rationalizing the calamity that befell Nigeria on that black Friday, right inside that court room. Let us pause a while as I situate the gravity of the tragedy.

A tragedy of similar trope that I can readily recall is the fable of the rat, goat, cow and the landlord that I was told several decades ago. It is a story that is used to graphically paint the tragedy of group failure to confront an impending calamity from its infancy; it is our own version of German Lutheran Pastor, Martin Niemoller’s poetic rendition of post-war cowardice of German intellectuals and some clergymen at the outset of Adolf Hitler’s macabre despotism and gradual massacre of groups in Europe, one after the other. While Hitler and his Aryan race incrementally decimated all the strata of society, there was a deliberate externalization, rationalization and trivialization of the calamity of his Third Reich, just the way some Nigerians have been rationalizing the Sowore tragedy.

Niemoller had captured the tragedy thus in such an engagingly penetrating poetry: First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. This poetry was also engraved on the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston.

Africa had her own attempt to rout collective action against tyranny before Niemoller’s, captured in an ancient fable but which possessed similar imperishable take-away.

A Landlord, who reared within his compound rats, goats, cows, and who was living with his wife, once came home with a rat trap. Opportune to sneak into where the trap was kept, the rat alerted the whole Landlord’s community that there was an impending calamity. Fazed by what they perceived as the rat’s attempt to externalize a problem solely his, the rest of the community wondered how the trap could signal an impending calamity to them. Frustrated by repeated attempts to get the community to collectively stave off the doom, the rat eventually gave Late Chief Bola Ige a handshake and embraced his sidon look philosophy.

Then one day, when the Landlord had set the trap to catch the notorious rat in the compound, his wife mistakenly stepped into its menacing metal barbs and was critically injured. Believing that the wound could be treated at home, weeks of self-medication worsened the injury and a hospital visit later pronounced that the wound had courted gangrene. Guests from afar who came to sympathize with the family had to be fed, necessitating the killing of the goat. When eventually, the madam of the house died of the injury, the cow was slaughtered for the burial ceremony.

On Friday last week, the world was astounded at the raw despotism visited on Sowore inside the court by Buhari’s DSS. While so many people who have inner eyes to perceive the calamity that lies ahead for Nigeria saw the event as symptomatic of the berth of Hitler on the Nigerian soil, so many people have rationalized the attack. Some even claim that Sowore, having joined forces to unseat former President Goodluck Jonathan while supporting Buhari’s ascension into power, had literally ridden on the back of the tiger and no one should pity him now that he is venison for the notorious tiger.

If the guilt of yesterday were to be used as the crucifix, not many of us can stand the scalding hot iron. We foolishly disobeyed the promptings of some people whose inner eyes saw beyond the façade of a despot-turned-democrat whose visor Buhari wore in 2015. They told us, even from the start, that they could see well ahead the democratic calamity that Buhari would be.

Believing that anyone but Goodluck Jonathan would do, we consigned those wise counsels inside the trash receptacle. I had a friend who is a professor in the United Kingdom who warned trenchantly, ab initio, that Buhari’s tiger could never change its stripes and thirst for blood. We told him to shut his trap as the new bride was now a repentant democrat. Gradually, Buhari started to bare his fangs and right now, we are at a very dangerous cusp between full-blown despotism and pseudo democratic credentials of a man whose idea of governance is manacling voices of dissent.

Buhari’s kind of emerging despotism is the most deadly. He is blessed with a taciturnity that is uncommon among men of his ilk. Not many people can claim to know the content of his mind. Those who know him talk of a man who engages mentally nourishing materials seldom.

He is fed on old ideas of brute force and even old ideas of governing a people. He possesses the old Uthman Dan Fodio idea of conquest of kingdoms and sparse idea of what to do with the conquered kingdom thereafter. He baits his foes with the same ruthless drive with which the lion baits the impala and when he descends on the victim, he celebrates his conquest by soaking his fluffy mane with its blood.
Buhari didn’t get to this level of ordering DSS to pounce on his victim inside the hallowed ground of the court overnight. His community – Adolf, Mobutu, Papa Doc, etc. don’t too. It was a gradual process. When he ordered the same DSS to storm the homes of judges in a Gestapo manner at the dead of the night, posturing to be fighting corruption, an admixture of political affiliation, religious connotation and belief in the power of an old military mascot, ensured that a panoply of kudos go to him.

Anyone who asked that a demarcation be made between corruption and justice was typecast as either a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or one of the relics of the corruption of the past. Lionized by the volley of claps, Buhari moved a step forward. The same DSS was unleashed on the National Assembly as hooded agents stormed the legislature. Again, this tyranny was greeted with claps and rationalizations across board. Emboldened, Buhari visited this same gruff on the former Chief Justice of Nigeria and before you knew it, earlier voices in support of the CJN were drowned when he brought out what he called Walter Onnoghen’s hands dripping with filthy oil from our collective broth. Then, he stomped on the religious Mullah, El Zak Zakky and his wife, threw them into the gulag and turned his challenged ear the other way, away from court orders. Repeatedly, his government has shown that the courts do not matter, even as he defecates on the order papers, while muttering diffidently the swear-word, dan buroba, shege!

Ibrahim Dasuki has been inside the Buhari gulag for years now for an offence that is bail-able and which some claim is an offshoot of a personal vendetta yet, we all look the other way, like those cow and goat, pretending that the tiff was between Gambari and Fulani which concerns us merely tangentially or not a jot at all. A recent investigative report by one of the newspapers said that many Nigerians are today in detention for daring to antagonize the new Fuhrer. Since this list of victims of power contains neither us nor our family members, we choose to externalize its debilitating effect.
Today, the power equation in Nigeria is such that assaults the spirit of equity which our forefathers swore must be etched in our hearts.

A Northerner is the President of Nigeria, a Northerner is the President of the Senate and a Northerner is the Chief Justice of Nigeria. We all move about as if nothing is amiss. I cannot readily recall a time in history when this kind of malady ever happened in Nigeria. Even under the military regime, attempts were made to worship this hallowed god of equity in a Nigeria fractured by arcane ethnic configurations, plural culture, languages and all that. At the death of General Murtala Muhammed and the banner fell on a Southerner, Olusegun Obasanjo, to be the Head of State, Musa Yar’Adua had to be given double promotion so that he could assume the 2iC position that would give the power configuration some sense of balance and equitable representation. Not now, not under a man who believes that he was the representative of Fodio in assuring an ascendancy of his kin in the Nigerian equation.
When I see emerging despotism, I remember the example of 19th century famous and powerful Egba migrant to Ibadan called Efunsetan Aniwura.

Wealthy, indeed said to be one of the wealthiest Yoruba women that ever lived, Aniwura became a sturdy in unmitigated tyranny. She was reputed to be a wildly authoritarian Iyalode of Ibadan whose weapon of autocracy was to inflict capital punishment on erring slaves. Like her contemporary character, Sani Abacha, Efunsetan Aniwura was murdered one night in 1874 while she was deep asleep. Two of the slaves in her barn had been tasked with the murder plot, woven by Aare Latosa, the Ibadan king who enlisted Aniwura’s adopted son, Kumuyilo, who in turn engaged the slaves.

We all should gird our loins because the gruff manifestation in the court on Friday is a grim projection of what we will face henceforth. Though he has feebly denied having any plan for a Third Term, psycho analysis of power shows that acts like the Friday court crackdown are precursors to a full-blown despotism or a plan to totally cow the populace, penultimate the baring of a Hitleric fangs. While, in the words of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, I see sorrow, tears and blood ahead, I am however comforted that despotism has an expiry.

The post Sowore and allegory of the rat that saw tomorrow | By Festus Adedayo first appeared on MegaIcon Magazine.

The post Sowore and allegory of the rat that saw tomorrow | By Festus Adedayo appeared first on MegaIcon Magazine.

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The post Court Orders DSS To Release Sowore, Bakare Within 24 Hours first appeared on MegaIcon Magazine.

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The vacation judge, Justice Taiwo Taiwo said he will grant the application only for a period of 45 days, adding that the 45 days will start to count from today.

Although the DSS had asked for 90 days in line with Section 27 Sub -Section 1 of the Terrorism Act Justice Taiwo held that the “MAY” in that section is a directory which gives the court discretion to decide as to the number of days to give the applicants and having looked at all the prayers and evidence attached, he is of the view to grant 45 days for the applicants to carry out their investigation.

He said, however, the DSS is at liberty to return to court via an application to ask for more days.

Sowore, who is the publisher of Sahara Reporters and presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, AAC in the February 2019 elections was arrested in the early hours of Saturday by operatives of the DSS in a hotel in Lagos.

DSS  said Sowore was arrested on account of the  #RevolutionNow protest which he had spearheaded.

The DSS had  on Tuesday approached the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, seeking leave to detain Sowore, for 90 days to enable it to carry out further investigation.

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T he DSS, in an exparte motion marked FHC/ABJ/CS/ 915/19,  is seeking the order of the court to detain him beyond the 48 hours of arrest required by law.

Sowore, who is the founder of an online news tabloid – Sahara Reporters and presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the February 2019 elections, was arrested in the early hours of Saturday by operatives of the DSS in a hotel in Lagos.

The agency explained that Sowore  was arrested on account of the #RevolutionNow protest which he had spearheaded.

Meanwhile, he was moved to Abuja on Sunday morning and is currently being detained in the custody of the DSS.

After listening to the motion which was moved by the counsel to the anti-graft agency, G. O. Abadua, Justice Taiwo Taiwo said he needed time to watch the video clips attached to the motion.

He, thereafter, adjourned ruling to Thursday, August 8.

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The commission’s spokesperson, Peter Afunaya, who  made the disclosure at a news briefing on Sunday in Abuja, also  noted that the DSS is acting within its constitutional powers to arrest and detain anybody or group who threatens the unity and peaceful co-existence of Nigeria.

Afunaya declined to comment whether Mr Sowore is at their office in Lagos or Abuja.

He added that the call for revolution poses as a national security threat.

Sowore, an activist and publisher of online news platform –  SaharaReporters, as reliably gathered was picked up at his apartment in the early hours of Saturday.

His arrest by operatives of the Department of State Services was further confirmed by his personal assistant who claimed to have witnessed the incident.

The news website had earlier hinted that  its publisher’s arrest was not unconnected to #RevolutionNow, a series of planned protests against bad governance in the country scheduled for August 5, 2019.

Meanwhile, several prominent Nigerians including, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar,  Oby Ezekwesili, Shehu Sani have called for the release of  Sowore.

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A member of the AAC National Executive Committee, Mazi Okwy, who read the resolution of the party to journalists on Monday, in Abuja, based the decision on the alleged against Sowore, Publisher of Saharareporters and his executive.

He maintained that the allegation bordered “particularly with inflow of illegal foreign funds into the party and and personally retaining same in contravention of Section 225 (3)(4) of the 1999 constitution (as amended) together with eight others.”

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