Governor Ali Modu Sherif
This year’s general elections are around the corner, but as politicians plan to celebrate their victories with wine and sumptuous meals, they may forget that their path to victory is soaked with the blood of innocent persons.
Nigerian politicians can teach the world how brutal, blustery and blood-spattered a democracy can be. On October 6, 2010, Alhaji Awana Ali Ngala, the Borno State Chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), which is the ruling party in Borno State since 1999, was killed. On January 28, 2011, the gubernatorial candidate of the ANPP, Modu Fannami Gubio, a cousin of the incumbent governor was also killed by some gunmen. On December 23, 2011, 10 persons in a cultural troupe going to Bauchi to entertain President Goodluck Jonathan, lost their lives in an accident. On January 7, six persons were killed in a feud between the PDP and the Labour Party in Bayelsa State. As at the last count, Sunday Trust research threw up the figure of reported political deaths three weeks away from the 2011 polls is put at over 86. This is in spite of the fact that government, the police, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have condemned political violence.
My pains know no limit, says father of Suleija bomb blasts victim
Malam Sule Maga in Suleja, the father of late Aminu Suleiman, one of the 10 killed in Sulejia bomb blast last month told Sunday Trust that his pains did not know limits as he was the person who urged his son and bread-winner to attend the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rally.
Speaking from a heart apparently shattered to smithereens, Maga said that if he had not insisted that the young man go to the rally he would have still been alive and well. Aminu was 31-years-old and a student of the College of Education, Minna.
“I cannot explain how painful it is to lose Aminu. I never realised that yesterday would be the last time I would be with him. Now, it is going to be tough for the family, as he was our shining star. As an illiterate, I wanted him to follow me to the place so that he could explain to me what the politicians had to say. He told me that he was busy, but I impressed upon him that his attendance was important. As a respectful child that he was, he quickly rushed off to school, came home to pick me on his motorcycle to the venue and we dispersed into the crowd”, he said.
He stated that he and the deceased were not within the same location at the rally, adding that he only heard the sound of the explosion, not knowing that Adamu was among the fatal casualties.
I am afraid of returning to Suleja, says bedridden Bello
For Ahmed Bello, a father of five since his discharge from the hospital, the fear of returning to Suleja has made him stay put in Minna for a while as he recounts with tragic reflection his ordeal in the midst of the blast.
While attributing his survival to sheer lack explained that the build up of the PDP rally was very exciting. He had no inclination that there could be detonations which would rock the field. He was just getting set to leave the venue when all hell was let loose suddenly.
“I was in Suleja where the Zone A rally of the PDP was taking place. I cannot recall the time, but after the National Anthem when the governor had finished his speech, I was trying to locate my car. As I was approaching the gate, I just heard a big sound and I said a prayer, because I usually pray when I hear any sudden sound.
“After my prayer, all I saw was darkness. The next thing I felt was that I was on the ground and I could not move my legs. I had to drag myself to where I heard some sounds.”
Bello said his while life experience flashed past him within seconds. He never knew that that fateful day could have been his last on earth. He said the impact and the peppery pain of splinters and shrapnel’s that sank deep into his flesh sent clouds of darkness on him as he gradually lost consciousness.
“There was darkness everywhere and when the light returned, I saw many people lying down, some dead, while some were crying. It occurred to me that I could not walk. I had to drag myself to the side of the road before help came my way,” he said.
I will never forget the day of the blast, says 13-year-old victim
For a thirteen-year-old boy in the bomb ravaged Government Secondary School, Suleja, the experience will last him his whole lifetime as he intimated that he would have lost his life in the blast.
He stated that he was at the spot where the explosion went off. He was there to buy carrot for his friends. He told Sunday Trust that he later learnt that the carrot seller died instantly, just less than half an hour after leaving the man.
The boy who gave his name as Hamisu said he wondered if he had stayed longer with the carrot seller if the same fate would have befallen him. For him, the incident was tale of horror.
I saw those who attacked and killed my son, says father of victim of Jigawa violence
Residents of Babura Local Government area of Jigawa State were thrown into misery on Sunday March the 6th, when supporters of PDP and those of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) clashed leading to the death of one Rabiú Ibrahim Yakubu.
A father of two and a political associate of Babura Local Government Council Chairman, Alhaji Amin Ahmad, the deceased was said to have been slaughtered. The deceased’s father, Malam Ibrahim Yakubu told Sunday Trust that, “I saw the attackers while going to the former chairman of the Local Government Council, Alhaji Sani Haru. They went there, searched the house, but nobody was found there. They moved to the residence of the present chairman, Alhaji Aminu Ahmad”.
Yakubu said “the late Rabiú was working at Aminu’s house. When the attackers entered the chairman’s house, they started attacking whoever came their way. As a result they brutally killed my son.
“I wonder why they killed him. My son was not contesting for any political office. Why was he killed like a political rival? Nevertheless, while I’m calling on the police to speed-up investigation into the matter, I leave everything to God because I have no means to continue following the case to its logical conclusion,” he lamented.
He noted that Rabiu was the breadwinner of his family, hence the killers had put the deceased’s family members into serious hardships.
Sunday Trust observed that several other persons, including an orderly to the Local Government Chairman were brutally injured during the political fight. The orderly was said to have exhausted his ammunitions in his effort to rescue his boss. The chairman was said to have jumped into seven houses of his neighbours before he could finally be rescued by a motorcycle rider, who picked him to a hidden place.
Investigation in Babura Local Government by Sunday Trust revealed that several temporary political parties’ offices and flags belonging to both PDP and ACN were destroyed by the angry youths.
Sunday Trust also observed that, a combined team of armed conventional and mobile policemen were conducting stop-and-search of any vehicle that coming or going out from Babura town. Speaking to our correspondent, the Sarkin Ban Ringin and District Head of Babura Alhaji Hadi Mustapha described the violence as animalistic.
“Politics, as catalyst of transforming the society from bad to good, has now been turned into weapon of destroying human lives and property. It is now practised with sadism, hatred and victimization” noted Mustapha.
According to him, “it is quite unfortunate for somebody to slaughter another human being like a ram in the name of politics. This has clearly shown that we are retrogressing from development progress to the opposite.
“It has become imperative for security agents to fish out the culprits for prosecution. I am suggesting a regular security meeting at the local government level and police should be equipped with modern communication gadgets to facilitate their job as security organ,” he stressed.
The police authorities in the state condemned the incident, but claimed that normalcy has returned to the town. The Public Relations Officer of the Jigawa State Police Command, ASP Abdu Jinjiri told Sunday Trust that, the deceased was a PDP member.
According to him, 10 persons were arrested and police personnel from the Criminal Investigation Department of the Command had begun the investigation with a view to fishing out the culprits.
The council chairman Alhaji Aminu Ibrahim Info, told Sunday Trust that, they were returning to Babura from campaign last Saturday when someone called him on phone, informing him that some thugs had burnt down the PDP office.
He added that, the next day, Sunday around 10:30 AM the same people attacked him and his people at his residence in their effort to gain entrance. Their aim, he noted, was to kill him, but he was saved by his police orderly, who shot in the air to scare the attackers.
Also speaking, the Babura local government chairman of the PDP, Inusa Alhaji Mati Babura, said all their party offices in the local government, posters, and billboards were burnt to ashes by ACN supporters, adding that his car was set on fire.
Commenting on the matter, the Jigawa state Chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria, Dr Abubakar Hassan Fulata, said, “We were in Babura for campaign when suddenly some thugs suspected to be Yan-Kalare hired from Gombe by the PDP attacked our buses. They smashed various windscreens and injured our boys”.
“I wonder how the PDP can stop Badaru from carrying out his political campaign in his home town. When Governor Lamido went to Babura, did any ACN member attack his supporters. Why the ACN and why in Babura, the home town of the ACN’s governorship candidate?” he asked.
Dr Fulata, however, said, as far the ACN was concerned, its people were the victims of the unfortunate incident, noting that, “our boys have been injured, while our campaign vehicles were damaged by the PDP supporters”.
We have lost our precious ones, lament relatives of Port Harcourt 10
At least 10 persons died in the Port Harcourt stampede which occurred on Saturday, February 12, 2011 during the South-South zonal rally of President Goodluck Jonathan. Nine women died in the stampede. They were mostly supporters of the PDP. Security operatives from the Presidency who allegedly caused the stampede when they locked the main exit of the Liberation Stadium, preventing people from going out while Jonathan was making speech.
Hon. Presley Wene Woke, first son of late Mrs. Violet Woroma Woke expressed his grief thus: “Anyway, it has happened and I will not tell you that I don’t feel bad, I feel bad because, she is my mother. Her blood runs in me and for sure, if anything like this happens, we feel bad. I am consoled in the fact that my mother died fighting for the sustainability of democracy in Nigeria.”
On his part, Chief Nnamdi Wokeh, paramount ruler of Rumuehio-Okania community, Rumuokwuta and another son of late Mrs Woke, lement: “I feel so bad that my mother was among those who died during the stampede because she is my mother and she carried me for nine months. Everybody knows that death is a journey you will embark on and never come back. I am feeling her absence very much because I have lost her as my mother. I will not eat my mother’s food again as she used to call me to come and eat in the main house.
“My mother’s wish before her death was that her children grow up to the standard meant for every human being so that she can enjoy her children during could lifetime, since she started nurturing the children when her husband died at a very tender age. Her dream was to see the re-election of Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, come April 2011. We are all aware that my mother went there on active political activity and she died. The stampede must have taken place through one miscalculation or the other. Government cannot bring people together for a political purpose only to turn round and kill them. What happened at the rally that led to the deaths is beyond human comprehension. It is only God that knows how that ugly incident came about. There is no amount of compensation that will be enough for a life but in all, if somebody died in active service, like my mother, who followed the PDP campaign train till her death, her dependents need to be taken care of.”
Hon. Stanley Uche Ogutu, Councillor representing Ward 8, Obio/ Akpor LGA of Rivers State (PDP) and son of one of the victims, late Mrs. Ogutu, has this to say: It was a very sad experience. I don’t have enough words to describe how I and other members of my family feel about this ugly development. It is very pathetic that among every other group of persons it is happening, it is happening to my family. It is very sad because we don’t know the exact word to describe what happened to us.
My mother was a democrat, she just went to participate and be part of the history-making campaign rally of the PDP. That, for the first time in the 50-year history of Nigeria, a Niger Deltan was about to become the country’s President. She wanted to be part of the history. All of us, including her, did not know that she was going to pay with her life. She just wanted to go there and observe what was happening. She was part of those who would cheer up the President, but it is quite unfortunate that things went the wrong way. I want to express my heartfelt sympathy to those who are mourning, just like I do today. It is quite unfortunate because from what I saw and heard, it is just quite unfortunate that the Nigerian system is still not being handled the way other countries handle theirs. The security system in this country is very bad, so bad that you don’t even know where to start. You can’t tell me that you are holding a rally in a stadium that can contain only 16,000 persons and, as a security agent, you allowed more than that number to be in that stadium. Not only that, a stadium that has six exit gates, you closed five and left only one small one open. You see a stadium that contained up to 30,000 persons and you opened just a small gate to call yourself a security man or what? I still say it was the security people who caused the stampede.”
Zakariya: Debate over his death
Yusuf Zakariya, also known as Amuda, woke up on Friday February 26 perhaps like any other day in his young life. By evening of that day, he was lying dead, having been gunned down in Iseyin by suspected political thugs in the entourage of the Oyo State Governor, Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala.
Yusuf is just another victim of the increasing political violence that is threatening to engulf Oyo State ahead of April’s crucial elections. But because he is an average citizen in a vast state, his death is not drawing as much attention as that of the popular Lateef Salako (Eleweomo) and two others who were brutally killed at a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) congress this December.
The cases of politically motivated violence in Oyo State (the wild wild west again?) is causing increasing concerns in the state and already President Goodluck Jonathan has received several petitions from politicians and traditional rulers in the state, all pointing accusing fingers at the governor.
Yusuf was killed during a Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) rally in Iseyin, some 100 kilometres north of Ibadan. The rally was for Biodun Osupa, who is contesting for the federal House of Representatives. During the rally, the governor’s entourage came passing with sirens wailing. Some men from the governor’s entourage reportedly stopped and started shooting sporadically in the air, injuring many, including a toddler. Yusuf was killed by a stray bullet, eye witnesses say.
“What actually happened was that a few party members belonging to the CPC crossed the road while our entourage was passing through the town, apparently they had a campaign activity there on the same day but to attribute the violence to governor Akala is unfair and wrong,” the Special Adviser to the Governor on Public Communications, Mr Dotun Oyelade says.
“Only yesterday, the Aseyin of Iseyin, the paramount ruler of Iseyin, where the incident took place, absolved the governor and said that Governor Alao-Akala is not a violent person, everybody knows this,” he adds for good measure. He even denies reports of a death in the incident.
“The opposition is using that incident, where no one died by the way, the opposition is using the incident to try and weaken him [the governor] and his party,” the SA says.
A day after the incident at the Zakariya household in Iseyin, relatives gathered to mourn the sudden demise of Yusuf. Among them is his cousin, Tunde Ahia from Bashorun compound, a cousin to the deceased and an eye witness to the shootings. He, like his late cousin, was part of the rally to welcome the CPC candidate when they heard the sirens heralding the approach of the governor’s entourage.
“We parked by the main road and allowed them pass. They started throwing bottles but we allowed them. Immediately the first entourage of the governor passed, we decided to continue with our procession, not knowing that there were still others coming behind. By the time we got midway, they just dropped and started shooting, guns all over, people wailing and shouting, even a toddler was shot. His mom too was shot in the thigh. Several people were wounded. Even I escaped by a breath of luck. I had to run as fast as I could. Many of us had to run. Before we realised what was happening...gun shots were everywhere. Before he [Yusuf] could run away, he was shot in the back,” he says.
But Mr Oyelade insists no one was killed in the incident. “He may have been shot probably in another incident, not as a result of the violence,” he insists.
Another witness, Olawoko Idiat, who is receiving treatment for gunshot wounds sustained during the incident independently, corroborates Tunde’s account.
This is not the first time the governor has had to defend himself against allegations of using violence to intimidate political opponents. He has been alleged to have masterminded several high profile assassination attempts in the state.
The senate leader, Teslim Folarin also of the PDP, is not in good terms with the governor. He alleged that he has received reports of plots by the governor to have him assassinated. The climax of this was in December during the PDP congress, where it is reported that Eleweomo, a known political thug loyal to the governor allegedly made an attempt on the life of Folarin. In repelling the attack, security operatives attached to the senator engaged the thug in a gun battle that resulted in his death and those of two others said to be loyal to the senator. That incident is being investigated by the police and several petitions have been fired off to President Jonathan.
There is also the well documented rift between the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, one of the most significant traditional rulers in Yoruba land and the governor. Last year, the Alaafin petitioned the president over allegations that the governor has offered a policeman N10m and a jeep to gun him down. The governor has since denied this allegation.
“The fellow who is alleged to have been contacted [the policeman] has publicly refuted the Alaafin’s claim,” Mr Oyelade says, adding that the governor is in good terms with all traditional rulers in the state. He points at the statement of the Aseyin of Iseyin absolving the governor of culpability in the Iseyin incident as evidence.
But an episode in February suggests otherwise. The Alaafin was shunned by the governor at the commissioning of the renovated Ancient Atiba Hall. When the British Colonialist last constructed the hall, they handed the key to the monument to the then Alaafin. This time, however, Mr Akala chose to hand the key to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is not even from the state, much to the disgust of some people.
The Alaafin has since thrown his weight behind the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria ACN, political observers in the state have said.
But chieftains of the ACN also say they are living in fear as a result of plots by the governor to have them assassinated. One of them is former governor Lam Adesina who has also accused the governor of wanting him dead as a result of “desperation to secure second term ticket and [get] re-elected as the Governor of the state.”
Governor Akala is facing a tough fight for the government house from his former boss, Raheed Ladoja (Accord Party) and the ACN’s Senator Biola Ajimobi. Ladoja was impeached as governor in 2006 and his deputy, Akala took over before a court ruled that the impeachment was unlawful and returned Ladoja as governor. By then Akala has taken over the party structure in the state and secured the governorship ticket on which he won the 2007 elections. The two men have not been in tune since then.
Political thugs have found business lucrative in Oyo State as more of them are finding employment. Candidates are no longer sure of their safety and some of them are being forced to take measures to beef up their security. One of such candidates is Dr. Wale Okediran, the ACN’s candidate for Oyo North Senatorial zone. He hails from Iseyin and was there when the shootings occurred. His billboard strategically placed close to a roundabout in the town’s centre was vandalised by the suspected gunmen. He expresses grave concern over his safety and says he is now considering options to improve security around himself and his family.
The governor’s spokesman, Mr Oyelade denies that they destroyed any billboards. “What you mean to say is that PDP billboards in Ibadan and other hinterlands are being splashed with mud and paint. I do not know of any incident where the reverse is the case,” he says.
But only the skeletal frames of Okediran’s billboard stand now at the roundabout. The shredded banner has been withdrawn to the candidate’s house, where this reporter saw it.
When contacted on the incident in Iseyin, the state’s Police Public Relations Officer, Mr Ajimoda Olatunji (a superintendent) said; “I am not aware of any incident.”
However, Mr Oyelade insists the ruling party is not intimidating the opposition. “The intimidation they are talking about is the surge of the crowd that is everywhere the governor has been to,” he says.
He assures that peaceful politicking in the state is welcomed. “All the major political parties in Nigeria have held their political campaigns here in Ibadan. As a matter of fact, the CPC presidential candidate will be coming to Oyo State next week [this week] and he has signified his intention to pay us a courtesy call and we are very excited. Governor Akala is a democrat,” he concludes.
