It is amazing just how malicious, vicious, bitter and ridiculous some people can be. It is in this light that one must see the write up titled ''Femi Fani-Kayode As An Assasin In Government...The Story Unfurls'' by one Enobong Umohette, a disgraced, dismissed and discredited former officer of Nigeria's State Security Services who wrote this piece and caused it to be published by Sahara reporters as far back as 2007.
It is also relevant to note that he wrote it and released it on the net just a few weeks after President Yar'adua first came to power and at a time when he thought that Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, the former Aviation minister, was likely to be nominated by ex-President Obasanjo to go into Yar'adua's first cabinet. That he was sponsored by Yar'adua's hatchet men to write this rubbish not only about Fani-Kayode but also about his own former boss the former Director-General of the SSS, Col. Kayode Are and ex-President Obasanjo is stating the obvious. That these very serious and wild claims that he made in 2007 and the fact that those claims were thoroughly investigated and found to be false at that time is no longer news.
That all those that he had apparantly been commisioned to ''kill'' by Chief Fani-Kayode, Obasanjo and the D-G of the SSS and whose lives he claimed to have saved ALL dismissed his ridiculous claims with contempt at that time, and still do, is no longer news. That Umohette had an axe to grind with everyone that participated in the regime that he believed destroyed his budding career as a James Bond-type spy and security officer is no longer news. That he married an old German woman that was twice his age just to get a visa and then fled Nigeria in 2005 or thereabout is no longer news. That he did not make public all this ''mind-blowing,'' ''vital'' and ''sensitive'' information about Fani-Kayode's supposed plans to kill his fellow Nigerians which he, Umohette, apparantly single-handedly thwarted, when the Chief was facing Ministerial Screening in the Senate in 2006 is, to say the least, very suspicious. Surely that would have been the best time to drop this bomb shell if all this were true. Again why did Umohette not go to the police or to the press when all these things were actually happening or better still why did he not resign from the SSS and completely quit the job of a spook and a professional assasin?
The reason that he could not and did not do any of the above is the fact that the whole thing from beginning to end, including his ridiculous assertions that Fani-Kayode had tortured and killed his own brother and members of his staff were all carefully crafted and scripted lies and fabrications. It is what is called ''disinformation'' in security circles and that well-crafted disinformation was not concocted and fabricated until 2007 when Fani-Kayode left office....a full three years after he had last seen Umohette. What is news is that Sahara reporters would want to dig up and re-publish this old and discredited story again, having first published it in 2007,only a few weeks after publishing yet another discredited story about Fani-Kayode in which they claimed that he had published nude pictures of his daughter on facebook. But let us get back to Umohette. The truth is that his assertions are unsubstantiated and preposterous and it is a disgrace that anyone should or could stoop so low.
The fact that Chief Fani-Kayode himself, his family, Col. Kayode Are, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and all the so-called targets and victims of the ''conspiracy to murder'', such as Segun Adeniyi, Remi Oyo, Dayo Asaju, Adams Oshiomole and all the others have also treated this deluded man's fairy tales with the contempt that it deserves by not even dignifying it with a response speaks volumes. And quite apart from that each of them is very close to Chief Fani-Kayode today despite the fact that they may have had some minor political differences in the past. The suggestion that Chief Fani-Kayode has a penchant for wanting to kill anyone that disagrees with him is just childish and ridiculous just as is the scurrilous suggestion that the former Minister has killed his older brother Mr. Akinola Fani-Kayode, who happens to be a lawyer like him, and has secretly buried him somewhere in Ghana. As regards Umohette I did my investigations on him as far back as 2007 when he wrote this utterly disgraceful piece and a lot came to the fore. After a while it became very clear to me that we were dealing with a very dangerous, conflicted, emotionally disturbed, mentally unstable and utterly relentless young man who had a deep grudge with the former leadership of the SSS, the Fani-Kayode family, Fani-Kayode himself and most importantly the Obasanjo regime.
The reasons which prompted his dismissal as one of Fani-Kayode's security officers, and then later from the SSS, can not be unconnected with the fact that he had contravened some of the rules that had bound him as a security officer and the fact that he consistently broke the law by selling ammunition to unknown persons, hiring out his weapon, pulling his gun on people and regularly threatening to kill them at the slightest provocation, begging guests and friends of Fani-Kayode for money, blackmailing and bullying, his fellow security officers, disappearing for long hours in the night without any explanation and so on and so forth. After this sort of pathological and strange behaviour went on for some time Fani-Kayode formerly reported the matter, in writing, to the SSS and asked for him to be replaced with another officer, which he was. And that was Fani-Kayode's crime for which Umohette swore to all those that cared to listen that he would one day get his revenge. But unknown to him his travails had just started and he continued to have problems within the SSS and in his next posting until they were forced to arrest, detain and investigate him on a much more serious issue. And that issue eventually led to his dismissal from the SSS. The issue concerned his alleged links to and assistance of some extreemly dangerous Al Qaeda suspects that were in SSS detention and that he chose to assist in return for money.
He apparantly assisted them by making phone calls to their international contacts on their behalf and passing messages to them. This is a very serious crime. These were people who were kept in custody by the SSS and who were under interrogation. The top officials of the SSS found out about the communications these suspects had with their contacts, traced the calls and shockingly, all the calls were made from Umohette’s phone numbers (which he did not deny when the discovery glared him in the face). Further investigations were made and it was clear that Umohette's level of involvment with these terrorist cells was quite deep.
The other reason that he was dismissed was because of his deteriorating his mental state and erratic behaviour. This was apparantly sparked off by the fact that he had earlier lost his brother, someone he loved very much, when the latter was killed by hired assassins. This sad incident affected his mental state deeply and the SSS took cognisance of that fact. From that point on, his undue fascination and delusions of he himself being a hired assasin and killing people got worse and worse and it was symptomatic of the fact that he was gradually losing his mind. He was placed under watch by them for a few months and within this period he was always with a gun and would sometimes shoot sporadically at people and in the air. This alarmed the SSS and they immediately approved his dismissal from the Service. The only reason that they did not prosecute him for this or any of the earlier Al Qaeda related offences was because he was clearly mad and the service did not wish for the country to know that they had an unstable and mentally deranged person in it’s service.
Yet despite his delusions and bitterness there is no doubt that Umohette had the presence of mind to have a deep hatred of the Obasanjo regime because he thought he was singled out for ''unjust'' punishment by them. This is despite the fact that his reasons for dismissal and everything that I have said here is in the records of the SSS. Quite apart from that I have taken time to check out the information myself and frankly speaking those records are not only accurate but Umohette's case has been a matter of great embarrasment to the SSS since 2005.
The allegations he levelled against Chief Femi Fani-Kayode in his belated and baseless diatribe in 2007 and which have been republished by saharareporters again on 28th March 2010 are obviously malicious and were calculated to do as much damage to Chief Fani-Kayode's illustriuos family and public career as possible. The question that should be asked and answered is who is after Chief Fani-Kayode and why? The facts and records are there at the SSS for verification as to why Umohette was dismissed from the SSS and his dismissal from service had no connection with the former Minister of Aviation. The Minister who he has been smearing with these crazy allegations hardly even knows him and he was assigned to him as one of his security officers for only a few months. As a security man who claims to be professional and efficient, he should have far better proof of his grave and wild assertions than simply his own verbal, ridiculous and highly questionable testimony. Does he not at least have tape recordings of these conspiracies or any other hard evidence apart from his word? Are we expected to trust and believe a character that is as flawed and as questionable as him? Since 2007 and up until today he has yet to present any proof of his very serious allegations. This is totally unacceptable and it is nothing but cheap blackmail, libel and slander.
These are just some of the problems that Nigerian public office holders and ex-public office holders sometimes encounter in Nigeria when an employee gets fired and this is not an exception. I challenge Umohette to answer the following questions: First of all, why did it take him so long to put these claims before the public? Why did he not speak out until he was fired? Does it mean that he was deeply involved with the conspiracy up until the time that he was fired? Does that not make him as guilty as anyone else? Has he ever killed people before as some have claimed? Is it true that he actually enjoys beating people and then killing them slowly?
Can he provide any concrete evidence apart from his own words and recollection of events to his claims against Fani-Kayode’s desire to kill people? Whilst Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was President, why did he not speak at that time? He may claim that his life may have been in danger if he had done so, but he could have safely done so from outside Nigeria because he had left the country well before Obasanjo left power.
The truth is that he waited long enough for Umaru Yaradua to be elected into office so as to arouse sympathy from the new government in the hope that he would be reinstated by them and contracted to help deal with Obasanjo and all his boys. He was clearly being used by them to attack Chief Femi Fani-Kayode and he had every reason to take up that contract and job with great relish and pleasure. Umohette should desist from attempting to drag people down with him and most importantly, for his own sake he needs to seek medical attention about the state of his mind. The truth is that you need a sound mind to see the insanity in what you are doing and Umohette clearly does not have one. He needs to admit his wrongdoings while he was in Service and if he wants to go back there, he should find some other means to do so other than attempting to run down an innocent man at the request of the Yaradua cabal, in order to make money and to gain cheap popularity.
Fellow Nigerians, let us not accept every negative word and smear campaign that is thrown our way. Not all of us are privileged to know what is going on in the background and whenever or wherever negative and slurring reports are churned out, there MUST be concrete evidence to predicate them on, otherwise they should be disregarded and treated with the contempt and derision that they clearly deserve. The reasons I have stated for the outright dismissal of Enobong Umohette from the SSS can be verified by them. Nigerian politicians need to urgently play decent and respectable politics instead of unnecessarily using others to try and hack people down for no justifiable cause. Umohette should understand by now that Yaradua's days are over and that there is no way for him to get back to work for the SSS. There is also a need for him to stop all the disparaging disinformation and lies that he is spreading all over the world about innocent men and women. He should concentrate more on his mental rehabilitation, his family and his new found career in professional boxing.
That would be a far more productive exercise. As for the long list of allegations that he has made against Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, his former principal and a man whose life and family he was supposed to guard with his own, they are nothing but a figment of his wild imagination and they are based on nothing but tissues of lies and falsehood. It is just as well that the former Minister, the former DG of SSS and ex President Olusegun Obasanjo have treated his childish allegations and assertions with the contempt and disgust that it deserves by simply ignoring him.
Bayo Oladeji
bayooladeji@yahoo.com
Femi Fani Kayode. General Olusegun Obasonjos Evil Hand for State Assasination ?
Femi Fani-Kayode As An Assassin In Government: The Story Unfurls
By Enobong Umohette (enobong_umohette@yahoo.com)
This is a true account of Femi Fani-Kayode’s role as an agent of lawlessness during the years he served in former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government. What I am about to relate are eyewitness accounts. For the record, I served as security detail and Chief Security Officer (C.S.O) to Mr. Fani-Kayode. From my vantage position I saw and heard some of the most despicable acts perpetrated by the ex-chief spokesman of the Obasanjo Presidency who later became a minister—first of Culture and later of Aviation.
The Obasanjo era, from 1999 to 2007, saw the reign of demonic power. Evil thrived in the land and demons were unleashed on our society through perfidy, violence and corruption. The greatest tragedy wrought on our national existence as a country manifested in that calamitous administration that held sway for eight years. It was a period when the powers that be and their shameless minions broke all records in recklessness, rascality and impunity. Fani-Kayode was at the top of the ladder of that regime’s evil agents.
In September 2007, I gave an exclusive interview to Saharareporters on my experiences as an ex-SSS operative turned amateur boxer. In that interview I made reference to Femi Fani-Kayode’s effort to threaten Olusegun Adeniyi, former Thisday editor and current presidential spokesman. The opprobrium and public outburst that trailed that interview provoked Mr. Adeniyi to term my statements, in one of two of his private emails to me, as ‘libelous’, ‘nonsense’ and ‘allusions’.
To my surprise, he didn’t take his vituperations to the public realm, as many Nigerian government functionaries (both serving and past) are wont to do. I was also surprised that, despite claiming to be scandalized, Mr. Adeniyi did not fire the famous rhetoric or threaten court action to “defend his good name.”
He was proud to declare in his emails to me that Femi Fani- Kayode called him to apologize over the ‘phone stalking and threatening’ incident and one Chief Omisore (a biological cousin of the globally famed senator, Otunba Iyiola Omisore of the Bola Ige murder saga) brought the phone stalker lady in question to his office to beg for her and Femi Fani-Kayode’s behalf. According to Mr. Adeniyi, “that was the end of that matter”.
In my response to Mr. Adeniyi, I praised his public spiritedness over the incident in question, citing where he was quick to use the public as a shield to hold Femi Fani-Kayode accountable for his safety. Yet, when Femi Fani-Kayode apologized in person and sent one Chief Omisore and the lady to reinforce his contrition, Adeniyi conveniently didn’t seem to be under any moral obligation to disclose these apologies to the same public on whose platform, according to him, he “fought and won”.
It is now obvious that Mr Olusegun Adeniyi had answers to some of my earlier ‘allusions’. In my opinion he is a clear example of an individual who needs more education on the concept of ‘PUBLIC INTEREST’, which is randomly debased in Nigeria. My poser to the presidential spokesman was this: I wonder what other disclosures he is yet to make, what disclosures he has conveniently not told the public and what other issues of public concern and interest, he has tidily foreclosed as “end of that matter”. The two well-timed colossal tragedies that visited Mr. Segun Adeniyi’s THISDAY newspaper in the form of an inferno and the cold-blooded assassination of Godwin Agbroko are still begging for answers. Unsurprisingly, the focus and direction, in the wake of those tragedies already suggests the “end of that matter”
It seems matters for public knowledge must either be selected for the strategic convenience of government or some powerful interests, or must be censored under obnoxious and incongruous statutes through the courts.
Reproduced herein is the contentious back page article that Mr Olusegun Adeniyi wrote on the threatening phone calls and stalking incident that I mentioned in my initial statement to Saharareporters. Mr. Adeniyi’s column was titled “ASO ROCK AND THE ‘ANONYMOUS’ CALLER”. The piece was published on 31st January 2004. When I asked Adeniyi and his THISDAY NEWSPAPER crew for a copy of the column, they could not provide it, despite their pledges to do so. It is marked as DOCUMENT 1:
Aso Rock and the 'Anonymous' CallerBy Olusegun Adeniyi
On my way home on Thursday night in a taxi (my car had broken down during the day), I got what I initially thought was a routine call. The lady at the other end who gave her name as Funke said she wanted to speak with Olusegun Adeniyi and I replied that she was speaking to him. The first thing she said was : "I read your piece today, I think you are a brilliant guy". I smiled to myself and said "thank you Ma". If a lady tells you that you are brilliant, would you not be happy? That was why I was totally unprepared for what came next. "But you are homosexual and a pagan who God will destroy."Without waiting for me to recover from the accusation, she went into a monologue of how the devil has been using me against President Olusegun Obasanjo, "anointed by God to rule Nigeria". She said I have never seen anything good in the President and some of his aides who are equally anointed of God, while I had allowed myself to become an instrument in the hands of the devil. Because I have become familiar with that sort of accusation, I presumed she was a genuine supporter of the President who felt I was being too harsh on the man and there are actually people like that who call me on phone (I don't even know how they get my number) to either abuse or advise me. It is a situation I confront all the time. But this one was different because she was very hysterical. As I tried to defend myself against the charge of being anti-Obasanjo, the lady shouted on me: "keep quiet, you this homosexual bastard. That is why you defended a homosexual in your stupid piece. You claim to be a Christian and you are writing in support of homosexual unbelievers while you attack anointed men of God. God will punish you."Unable to take it anymore, I dropped the phone. But I was worried. My worry stemmed from the fact that if she indeed is a Christian and she believes I am a homosexual and has been working against Obasanjo, I reasoned that I ought to defend myself. I could sense she was angry about the piece and I tried to see how I attacked the President when I merely reviewed the open letter sent by Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar (rtd) to President Obasanjo on his own reading of the state of the nation. If anything, I upbraided Umar for his uncivil language. Many people had indeed called me in the course of the day to argue that Umar was right and I was wrong for 'defending' the President. All my explanations that we should respect the man and his office fell on deaf ears and here I was being attacked for being anti-Obasanjo. You can never win in this business.Incidentally, shortly before the lady called, I had spoken with Mrs Remi Oyo, Special Assistant to the President on Media Affairs, a thoroughbred professional we all have respect for. She complained that even while it was good for me to highlight that Umar's language was unhelpful, I was not particularly fair to the President while the review of the performance of the administration was not in any way balanced. She particularly took exception to the title of the column, Obasanjo Versus Dangiwa Umar, arguing that the President has, notwithstanding the provocation, deliberately refused to join issues with Umar, hence I ought to have left him out of the controversy. I saw the point in her argument but explained the context of my piece and we ended the conversation on a convivial note. Mrs Oyo is one person who likes to make friends of enemies through the power of persuasion, that is why we all love and respect her and almost all editors do, even though there is also the sentiment that she was our President before she went to Aso Rock.The lady, my tormentor that is, who was using a number she did not disguise (08034091519), perhaps for me to know she meant business called again to rain more curses on me for being "a homosexual who wants to bring the Obasanjo government down to satisfy some pay masters". The aspect of being paid against Obasanjo did not bother me. In Nigeria, somebody must pay somebody to do something- that is the usual charge when there is no defence to a position. I had, however, been accused of so many things before but never homosexual and it disturbed me. Besides, I don't hate this President, as the lady claimed, and he knows. In any case, I had just spoken with Mrs Oyo. So I decided to send the lady a text message, implying that I am not unfamiliar with those in Aso Rock. I felt she was crying more than the bereaved, not knowing she was actually the 'bereaved'. At this stage, I was still na‹ve to think I was dealing with an innocent caller. This was the text I sent her leaving out a few things for obvious reasons: "Because you claim to be a Christian, I believe I should educate you about me so you can check me out. I attend Redeemed Christian Church of God, a Worker, married with three kids. Not gay. But my faith does not teach me to judge people I don't know so I would not jump into conclusions about you but then you have created an impression. You even cursed me when you don't know me. Yet you claimed to be a Christian! On the piece, many people from the Villa, including Mrs Oyo have called to thank me. (I stretched the truth here thinking I was dealing with an outsider). Fani-Kayode was not sent and even if Umar is...it is demeaning to use Presidential letter-head for that kind of statement. I believe Christian leaders should be helped as stated in the Bible and I help OBJ. But I don't judge people on the religion they profess because, as I said in my piece, if God were to mark iniquity who can stand?...I am working my own salvation with fear and trembling. You hurt me deep but my God will fight for me. God bless you".All these transpired while I was still in the taxi on my way home and some minutes after I sent the long message, she called again. I was excited that there was truce at last, I thought she would have seen my point of view, knowing I meant no harm. But I was wrong. The first thing she said was; "I got your message, you this bloody homosexual, you are very stupid to write me and I will get your mail to all the people you are lying about, you idiot". She banged the phone on me. I was so disturbed I did not know what to do because I had not dealt with a situation like this before. While I was still ruminating on what to do, the lady struck again by way of a long text message. Here it is: "Go to hell and stop disturbing me. You will lose because you are fighting against anointed men. The President is anointed, Fani-Kayode is anointed and all those in the Villa are solidly behind them, including Remi Oyo. If anyone tells you otherwise and you believe them, you are an even bigger fool than I thought. Then you don't know OBJ as I know him. He is a fighter and he takes this Umar's thing very seriously indeed, take it from me. Andy Uba and Fani-kayode are like sons to him now. You are a fool to think otherwise. OBJ can never deny Fani-Kayode because OBJ is a good man. You know nothing about what is going on or what all this is all about. It is bigger than you think and by the way, be under no illusions, you are despised in the Villa. God will punish you for the envy you have for Mr President and Fani-Kayode. Ask THE HOLY SPIRIT (her emphasis)."With this, I knew I had trouble on my hands and when I got home, everybody could see instantly that something was wrong. I told them immediately and quite naturally, my own family also began to invoke the name of the Holy Spirit to ward off any evil machination from the woman. Before I could settle down, the phone rang and it was the lady again. I put the handset on speaker so everyone could hear the message: "You are a Goliath but our David will destroy you in Jesus name". She rang off. Then, just as it happens in movies when a mystery is solved at the very end, Mrs Oyo called: "Segun, did you send a text message to a lady? Femi (Fani-Kayode) just showed me a text you sent to a lady where you said I spoke with you." With that, the jigsaw fell into place. In November last year, when THISDAY published an interview with Mr. Fani-Kayode in the Saturday paper, the editor, in the attempt to show the glaring inconsistencies and opportunism in the position of the man who now occupies the office of Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, also published a write-up the same Mr. Fani-Kayode did in COMET two years ago where he abused and rained curses on the President. Apparently hurt by the reproduction of what he wrote in the past, he sent a fiery text message to the editor and Mr Eddy Odivwri, the Assistant Editor who conducted the interview, raining curses on them because, as he said, they wanted to destroy the Lord's anointed (meaning himself). But because Eddy replied him by explaining that he meant no harm, Mr. Fani-Kayode followed up with three different text messages which we copied. All were sent on November 8, 2003 from his mobile phone number.But the interesting aspect is that there was also, on that day, this text message to Eddy from 08034091519, the same person who has been stalking me: "I don't know this man, but you don't know the number of people that are praying for Femi Fani-Kayode. God will surely visit his wrath on you and all others..."I have done my investigation of that number and the conclusion is that except Mr Fani-Kayode and his alter ego are acting alone, we are back to the dark days of General Sani Abacha. I have the log of all the calls the lady made from her Pay As You Go MTN line Thursday evening (especially the ones she placed in between her five calls to me at 8.23 PM, 8.40 PM, 8.50 PM, 9.41 PM and 9.42 PM) as well as the (same) person she spoke to repeatedly on November 8 last year when she sent Eddy her text message. Because with modern technology, all this childish shenanigan can easily be exposed!I did not attack Mr Fani-Kayode in my piece which was critical of the language deployed by Umar in his letter to the President and the tone of the response from the Presidency which I considered unbecoming. And I did not in any way attack the person of the President for whom I have tremendous respect.
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In any case, Mr Fani-Kayode had said in his lengthy response to Umar for the benefit of all reporters: "If at any time, no matter how big or how small, anyone decides to throw one hundred bricks and insults at Mr. President, I, as his Special Assistant on Public Affairs, reserves the right, if I deem fit, to respond in anyway, at any time and in any medium that I see fit. That is my job. That is what I am paid to do...my position today is: If you attack my principal, you must be ready to be exposed."This is fair enough. For a man with such conviction, one would expect that if he felt aggrieved by what I wrote and would want to expose the 'fact' that I did so because I am 'homosexual' or paid to write the piece he would take the free opportunity of his "Right of Reply" which we hold sacred at THISDAY to join issues with me. But he did not. Instead, Mr. Fani-Kayode gave a lady my number to be stalking me. That is a sign of desperation. And desperate people are known to be very dangerous. That is why I am placing the issue in the public domain. In case anything happens to me...
In March 2003, I was dispatched with another SSS operative on VIP protective duties to Femi Fani-Kayode. It was our understanding that the Director General of the State Security Services (herein referred to as DG SSS) was responding to an assassination attempt on Femi Fani-Kayode who was then a member of the Obasanjo-Atiku campaign organization.
Within weeks of this assignment, Femi Fani-Kayode elected to retain me as his Chief Security Officer (C.S.O). From my background in the SSS, he was aware that I was decorated as OVERALL BEST IN UNARMED COMBAT in my 2000 training cadre, proficient in weapons handling and marksmanship and was twice a security detail to the erstwhile Akwa Ibom State Governor, Obong Victor Attah, and had a record of very challenging operations and assignments I had excelled at in the past.
He was also aware that as a VIP protective detail, it was my supreme duty to ensure his protection and that of his family even if it meant at the expense of my life. This is a professional creed that I uphold as a protective security detail, but in Fani-Kayode’s thinking, this meant ABSOLUTE LOYALTY TO HIM. How mistaken he was.
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A few weeks into my service as his C.S.O, things started unraveling one after another. I discovered that the story of an assassination attempt on him as published in the print media was a hoax. It was contrived by Fani-Kayode with the assistance of his friends and contacts in the media. It was his intention to attract President Obasanjo’s sympathy to provide him with elite state protection. Femi Fani- Kayode’s insatiable desire for power was to manifest in much greater magnitude, as I was soon to realize.
Fani-Kayode was later to make a written request to the Nigerian Police. After making calls to the Police Headquarters at the highest hierarchy, the then Deputy Commissioner Operations (D.C OPS), Lagos state Police command, Mr John Haruna, was directed to approve Fani-Kayode’s request for high police protection. Subsequently, mobile policemen were assigned to his residence on shift duties.
Even prior to getting both SSS and police protection, Fani-Kayode was obsessed with personal security. His previous security consisted of four security men (known in Nigerian parlance as‘mai-guards’) of Niger Republic origin who manned his heavily fortified gate; two young daytime security hands courtesy of the Odua People’s Congress OPC (who later withdrew their services in protest); and about nine viciously trained guard dogs that were released on patrol only after midnight.
With this ‘absolute loyalty’ misconception in the mind of Femi Fani-Kayode, next came the task of understanding his thought process. His propensity for violence, ill temperament and impulsiveness were unrivalled by anything I had ever seen before. Cooks, cleaners, cab drivers, stewards, laborers, craftsmen and employees who dared to ask for their unpaid wages and legitimate debts or requested to leave his employment, were thoroughly brutalized by him. In addition, these domestic staff were routinely arrested and detained by the police on trumped up charges ranging from stealing, spying, to posing a ‘security risk’ to Fani-Kayode.
Right inside his physically well-fortified abode, I witnessed the most horrific and bizarre aspect of the man’s twisted mind: torture sessions, which he personally carried out on individuals in his premises. One of the victims is Atkins Fani-Kayode, his biological older brother, a London trained lawyer. Atkins Fani-Kayode had remained a prisoner under Femi Fani-Kayode’s tyrannical imprisonment since 2001, locked in his younger brother’s dingy boys’ quarters and tortured on a weekly basis. Atkins was heavily monitored on a round-the-clock basis and denied access to the outside world. His life, freedom and dignity were simply snatched away from him.
Femi Fani-Kayode would occasionally allow his brother to visit his main living quarters to watch his interviews on national television and interact with his guests. But Atkins’ occasional visits to the main house were done under the strictest and most stringent guidelines. Femi always warned him beforehand to watch his comments. Often, Femi would say, “If you make one stupid comment, I’ll skin you alive.” The trepid gentleman knew the harsh consequences that awaited him if he erred by speaking of his captivity.
On numerous occasions Femi and Atkins Fani-Kayode’s sisters would telephone from London and ask to speak with Atkins. Before Femi handed the phone to his older brother, he would order him, under duress and threat of torture, to speak in a happy tone and to respond in monosyllables to their sisters’ enquiries. He was ordered to state that he was doing okay and that Femi was taking good care of him.
As I write, it is uncertain if Femi did not eventually kill Atkins. I often worry that Atkins Fani-Kayode might have been tortured to death. But if that kind, intelligent and peaceful gentleman is dead, I pray that someone somewhere will ask a court to cause for his body to be exhumed from wherever it has been buried, be it in Nigeria or Ghana (where Femi Fani-Kayode has considerable investment and had planned to banish his elder sibling to). The least that will be discovered is a couple of broken bones or a cracked skull, even though I am most certain that an autopsy would have already been manufactured, to state the cause of death as an ‘ailment’ or ‘natural’. The full story of Mr Atkins Fani-Kayode’s journey into his younger brother’s (Femi Fani-Kayode) captivity is yet lined up, for another day.
Another victim of Femi’s savagery was a male domestic staff (who will remain anonymous for now, until a later time). He worked and resided in Fani-Kayode’s house, but eventually became a prisoner on forced labor against his will for more than a month. He was often used as guinea pig to test the aggression and combat-readiness of two of Femi Fani-Kayode’s most vicious canines, all for Fani-Kayode’s amusement. The captive young man regularly sustained serious bite injuries from these dogs. That young man’s dramatic escape later provoked the mother of all police manhunts on heavily trumped up charges by Fani-Kayode. That epic story is for another day.
Femi Fani-Kayode’s sordid libidinous degeneracy was another issue. He has an unbridled penchant for housemaids and a perverse impulse for sexual exploitation of young lady-employees in any establishment, no matter how lowly. He entertained himself to sexual orgies on an almost daily basis at various hotels in Apapa, one sharing the same fence with his residence and a couple more just down the street. A quarrel between Femi Fani-Kayode and one of his women of easy virtues in the privacy of a hotel room could lead to a telephone call to the DG SSS, Col Kayode Are (rtd) or the Police H/Q. The attendant consequence was immediate arrests and detentions of innocent people just going about minding their own business. His sexual assaults on his wife’s housemaids were constant. The traumatized victims were summarily branded ‘possessed’ and sent for ‘deliverance’ at the nearby Mountain of Fire Church/Ministries at Marine Road Apapa, Lagos whose members regularly came to offer prayers for Fani-Kayode at his residence. This is of course before some of those ‘delivered’ housemaids would soon after be arrested and detained by the police on fictitious charges leveled by Fani-Kayode.
It was indeed a theatre of unfathomable depravity and absurdity. Sometimes I hoped that there would be some respite and logic from Femi’s born again, speaking-in-tongue, cherub-faced, God-fearing, Ghanaian-born wife Regina Fani-Kayode (nee Amoo), a deaconess.
But she was a little terror in her own right. By her decree, no maid/chef dared taste of the food they assisted her to cook, but must feed and purchase their own food from outside. When calls from the Fani-Kayode sisters resident in London were made, this “deaconess” would be all sweet charm as she lied, “Atkins just went out.”
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She was the proprietress of MENU INTERNATIONAL BAR/RESTAURANT situated at No 7 Randle Road Apapa, Lagos, an establishment inherited from the late Chief Remi Fani-Kayode. (The building is now a church). This outfit was another conduit for all sorts of arbitrariness as staff who demanded unpaid wages were branded thieves, accused of misappropriating some bottles of beer, and summarily arrested and detained by Femi Fani-Kayode’s police stooges at the Apapa Area command on the instruction of ‘Madam’ Fani-Kayode. Madam’s ‘holy-holy’ was absolutely at face value indeed.
There was a case of one Musa Leshi, who worked for ‘Madam’ at MENU INTERNATIONAL. He had been owed wages and was keen on quitting and requested his wages with intention to quit. Incidentally, two environmental sanitation notices were served to ‘Madam’ Fani-Kayode through MENU INTERNATIONAL, which she promptly ignored as ‘rubbish’ and ‘an insult’.
As Musa agitated for his wages, Madam put out a call to Femi Fani-Kayode’s police stooges. Those stooges were on the move to arrest and detain Musa at the instance of ‘Madam’ Fani-Kayode when the hand of fate struck on 28/7/03 as the Lagos State Environment Agency swooped in on MENU INTERNATIONAL with a warrant and arrested Musa Leshi charging him to court instantly for sanitation law violation committed by MENU INTERNATIONAL, which the proprietress ‘Madam’ Fani-Kayode should have been liable for. Madam greeted the news of Musa’s predicament with joy. It was now unnecessary for the police boys to go after Musa as she called them off. As far as she and Femi Fani-Kayode were concerned, he could rot in prison custody for all they cared.
While pretending to be out on a purchase, I raced to the court premises and secured a surety and N5000 cash, just in the nick of time to effect Musa Leshi’s bail before he would be remanded in prison custody awaiting trial. The heavily traumatized Musa Leshi had just encountered a close shave with calamity and could not thank his stars enough for his freedom. A recent AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT on Nigeria seriously lampooned the Nigerian criminal justice system where people are thrown en masse into prison custody awaiting trial for the flimsiest of charges, yet they suffer ‘awaiting trial’ for many years, while many die. Is the reason as exemplified by this incident not obvious?
FIND ATTACHED THE ORIGINAL BAIL BOND COPY IN THAT INCIDENT MARKED AS DOCUMENT 2
As a Presidential Special Assistant, Fani-Kayode was a name that provoked panic and terror in Apapa. Directors of SSS could not cross paths with him, and no AIG would decline his request. After all, he was on direct dial with the President and the entire top echelon of the Intelligence community.
Then came another incident in October 2003, when the Lagos State Valuation Office sent an inspection team to Femi Fani-Kayode’s residence. As the official notice from the team reached Femi Fani-Kayode and as the team waited outside to confirm a suitable date for their assignment with the owner of the property, Fani Kayode was incensed at their audacity as he declared his residence a “Presidential building”. He immediately put a call out to the highest police authorities alleging that he was under siege by unknown assailants armed and numbering more than 10. In no time, a crack team of policemen was dispatched to the rescue and en route to his premises. Meanwhile he had ordered the mobile policemen in his premises to be confined as he instructed his dog tender to release two of his most vicious canines on stand-by. While the evaluation team was outside his gate innocently awaiting a confirmation from the owner of the property, they were absolutely oblivious to the dangers they were in on two fronts.
I visualized the disaster that would have ensued, if the trigger-happy, combat-ready crack police squad, eager to rescue “Baba’s Boy” had met with the evaluation team waiting outside Femi Fani-Kayode’s gate. The evaluation team would have vehemently and boldly confronted the cops on the confidence that they were performing their lawful duties. As was typical of the Nigerian police, with ‘marching orders to intercept and gun down the ‘UNKNOWN ASSAILANTS,’ there would certainly have been little room for inquiries in such an encounter.
I desperately appealed to Fani-Kayode to allow me dialogue with the evaluation team, which he reluctantly obliged and the dogs were called off. I spoke with the evaluation team outside and hurriedly escorted them back to their office where a later date and time was fixed for Fani-Kayode to go there and provide information to sort out the evaluation of his property. Incidentally, we drove past an unmarked police wagon, filled with the combat ready cops. As the police crack squad arrived, Fani-Kayode maintained that the ‘unknown assailants’ had fled from his gate. A nasty scenario was thankfully averted.
Attached is the notice sent by the LAGOS STATE VALUATION OFFICE TEAM that enraged Femi Fani-Kayode marked as DOCUMENT 2 (B)
There were many more horrendous tales during this period April-November 2003, but this piece is about the most sinister sides of this journey where-in many would-be victims did not even know how close they were to their own deaths as a consequence of Fani-Kayode’s psycho–erratic whims.
Barely two days after my first interview with Saharareporters was published, a historically unprecedented event happened. Six of Yar’adua’s cabinet ministers rejected SSS protection, among them the Attorney General of the Federation, Michael Aondoakaa whose comments and activities upon the inception of this administration continue to evoke bewilderment, shock and consternation all over the globe.
My question to these ministers is this: ARE THESE THE SAME OR EVEN WORSE INDISCRETIONS THAT THEY ARE AFRAID WILL BECOME INTELLIGENCE REPORTS BY THE ASSIGNED SSS DETAILS THEY REJECTED?
I was too smart to write any intelligence report to the SSS on him, for him or about him because it was utterly useless and twice the more dangerous. Fani-Kayode himself, knowing how effective intelligence reports by SSS operatives were, had many at times tried to use me to write intelligence reports that would implicate and cause serious harassment for his enemies (people he had petty libidinous squabbles and trivial disagreements with). He failed woefully as I assured him that his ‘telephone direct line to power’ was faster and more effective than an Intelligence report that would require processing and other bureaucracies. That is how I tactfully wriggled out of the witch-hunting trap.
Seeing how Fani-Kayode had unlimited access to President Obasanjo, the heads of security agencies and the entire intelligence community, whom he was on direct dial to, at any time, on any issue and with any claim, I knew this was the last bus-stop for me. No one who knew Femi Fani-Kayode well enough to witness or know his indiscretions would end a relationship with him without reprisals and consequences. His FEAR WAS EXPOSURE, PARTICULARLY IN THE MEDIA. When Fani-Kayode exploded with rage, he offered and was ready to provide any material resource to enable his rage to be pacified. When a situation arose and he refused to heed my appeal for calm and dialogue, I’d simply step back and maintain an observer status as he deployed his police stooges to fix his would-be innocent victims with harassment, arrests and detentions.
As a result of my present revelations, Fani-Kayode (who has already vowed to have me and my Caucasian wife killed) now knows how and why most of the would-be innocent victims outside his residence managed to evade getting into harm’s way. I am sure his friend, the erstwhile DG SSS, Colonel Kayode Are (rtd), must have directed all sorts of security circulars and directives all over Nigeria targeting me for immediate arrest and incarceration, shortly before his sordid reign over the SSS came to an unceremonious end. There are probably a couple of hired guns too with a contract out on me. Whether alive or in the grave, my passion is to expose these unthinkable atrocities and pray that someone somewhere will be bold enough not just to answer the name of ‘reputed Human Rights Crusader’ but will stand up to provoke that Femi Fani-Kayode’s innocent victims, scattered all over the country, be given access to legal representation and counsel, if only for the purpose of pursuing justice for the traumatic afflictions he wrought on them. For my would-be assassins, wherever you see me, please feel free to take your best shot but be rest assured that my dream for justice and retribution for these unthinkable evils will live on, long after me.
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With the wrong assumption of blind loyalty and his delusion of grandeur and omnipotence, Fani-Kayode trusted me absolutely and now openly solicited me for the heinous job of murdering some prominent and innocent citizens.
The first was Col. Abubakar Umar in mid-2003. He desperately wanted Umar shot and killed for the crime of his incessant attacks on Obasanjo. Next was Mrs. Oluremi Oyo, the Senior Special Adviser to President Obasanjo on Media. Next was Mr Ekundayo Asaju, a journalist who ran GOOFS AND GAFFES, OTHER SIDE OF CELEBRITIES column in ENCOMIUM MAGAZINE.
In the case of Mrs. Oluremi Oyo, who was the senior special Adviser to President Obasanjo on media, Fani-Kayode not only wanted her job as OBJ’s chief image maker (seeing that a Ministerial Appointment in the post OBJ 2003 re-election was not in sight), he believed he was “doing a better job of being vociferous against Obasanjo’s critics and taking the heat for baba”. In fact, he wanted her assassination to be staged to implicate Gen Muhamadu Buhari by placing a BUHARI ANPP campaign Organization Identity card on the scene where she would have been felled in Abuja.
I convinced Fani-Kayode that, to perfect these plots to utmost precision, I would need several weeks of surveillance, casing, city studying, establishing regular commuting routes/daily lifestyle pattern of the targets, set up of strategic monitoring and surveillance points, exit routes, safe houses, contingency plans and alibi locations. These were all counter-security terminologies that impressed Fani-Kayode but inadvertently gave me enough time to allow his desperation to simmer and with weeks of the vague verbal ‘progress reports’ I was feeding him, overtaking events were creating a necessary distraction to reduce his pressure. I put him under the impression that I had a trusted team which he must NEVER meet, that were scattered all over the country, facilitating the processes for these assassinations.
However, there was a pattern that was regular with the people he wanted me to kill. He had his mistress/lover (before her identity was blown—she is the same woman whom Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi had personally met in company of Chief Omisore) to call and threaten the individual by voice or text messages. He also had a few of his police stooges send threatening phone messages to these individuals too. In the attached November 2004 back page write-up by Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi (reproduced later in this document), the writer incidentally mentions two people who probably never knew that they were supposed to be at the receiving end of the barrel of an assassin’s gun in 2003: Col Abubakar Umar and Mrs Oluremi Oyo. Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi in his own words analyzed Femi Fani-Kayode thus: “That is a sign of desperation. And desperate people are known to be very dangerous…” Even the vituperations made by the threatening ‘anonymous Aso-Rock Caller’ (now well known to only Mr Segun Adeniyi) gave very chilling allusions and were quite some food for thought, over the same Col Abubakar Umar.
‘Project Col Abubakar Umar’ was agreed to be a much slower and long-term assignment, which I assured him would be most potent when the media attention on Umar’s dispute with President Obasanjo subsided. So it was supposedly on the drawing board.
At this time, it wasn’t usual to accompany Fani-Kayode on his trips to Abuja. But in view of ‘Project Remi Oyo’ I had to fly in and out of Abuja with him, familiarize with the Aso Rock PROTOCOL UNIT, and commence what Fani-Kayode assumed was a detailed background work on her assassination.
Part of this project included accompanying Fani-Kayode to attend the Appeal Court sessions in the post-2003 presidential election case between Buhari and Obasanjo. I sat within four feet from Gen Muhamadu Buhari at the Court of Appeal Abuja, separated by Chief Don Etiebet at one instance and exchanged courtesies with Gen Buhari and Chief Etiebet every time we were in court. Unknown to them, I was supposed to be on a more sinister plot and the grand prize was to surreptitiously lift any item that could identify Gen Buhari or be traced directly to him, or the identity card of a fair skinned gentleman, who appeared to be Gen Buhari’s aide or security detail—a man in his early 30’s, about 5 ft 10” and weighing about 200lbs. He always wore dark goggles.
I assured Fani-Kayode that I needed more time and applied the usual delay tactic.
The last resort was to lift a Buhari ANPP presidential campaign organization I.D card from any of the ANPP supporters that thronged the court in solidarity with Gen. Buhari and ANPP. The idea was to secure a ‘fall-guy’ for the assassination.
The plot was well defined in Femi Fani-Kayode’s mind. Once that I.D card was pick-pocketed and placed at the scene of Mrs. Remi Oyo’s assassination, the man would be arrested. Need I say that the man’s coerced confession would implicate Gen Buhari, who would have been immediately pounced on? The rest would be history.
A most hilarious incident happened on 7th July 2003 when I attended the Election Petition suit at the Court of Appeal in Abuja with Fani-Kayode. It was a unique attendance as most of the PDP governors came in solidarity with President Obasanjo who was served a summons a few weeks earlier to give testimony on the suit.
In my observation of Dr Chris Ngige’s small physical frame, I quipped to Fani-Kayode that I was utterly amazed that Dr. Chris Ngige was a man of such small physical stature and I believed he could even be abducted from a moving vehicle un-noticed. It was a comic quip, which turned out to have a huge impact on Fani-Kayode’s thinking.
Barely 48 hours after I made that comment to Fani-Kayode, the international media on the morning of July 9, 2003 announced the abduction of the same Dr. Chris Ngige in a most bizarre and controversial circumstance. This completely bedazzled Fani-Kayode who consistently re-iterated to his inner circle of friends how my ‘abduction’ quip could co-incidentally become a reality barely 48 hours after saying it. In fact, he was of the impression that I had prior knowledge of Dr. Chris Ngige’s abduction and I must be connected to a “powerful covert inner circle at the highest level within the intelligence community.” This was no coincidence in Fani-Kayode’s mind, but something that strengthened his resolve that I was the “perfect hit-man who would deliver his assassination plots with stainless precision.”
In all our Abuja and Aso Rock visits, I was on the surface just a C.S.O accompanying his Principal on outings. But Fani-Kayode had other dark plans up his sleeve and he nursed a fantasy that I was something else entirely.
While my vague verbal progress reports and delay tactics seemed to be working on Fani-Kayode, there was one assassination mission that he impatiently contracted a mercenary group to perfect for him. This was in the case of Ekundayo Asaju of ENCOMIUM MAGAZINE
In Ekundanyo Asaju’s column of Tuesday October 14, 2003, he rebuked Fani-Kayode for launching a verbal tirade on national television against the person of Adams Oshiomhole in the wake of the 2003 labor action over fuel price hike. In that national television interview, Fani-Kayode described the NLC president as “ill-bred”. Ekundayo Asaju’s sin was that in his column he made an innuendo about “an addiction”. Fani-Kayode spent thousands of Naira to buy off the magazine from the Apapa news stands that weekend without much luck.
FIND ATTACHED THE GOOFS AND GAFFES COLUMN REPORT BY EKUNDAYO ASAJU of 14th October 2003 MARKED AS DOCUMENT 2 (C)
SHAME ON OUR DICTATOR
COMRADE Adams Oshiomhole called off the strike and I was glad that finally our arrogant, know it all dictator President had been humbled. I am glad that the man now knows that Nigeria does not belong to him, that we are bigger than his chickens and eggs that he can order around. Imagine everybody begging one man who believes he knows it all. Again I wonder how we made the fatal mistake of voting him in the first and even a "second" time. If he could spend or waste billions on COJA and CHOGOM why must he take it out on Nigerians? One lesson that this experiment has shown is that OBJ should know that he is just a servant of Nigerians and not our master.
Thank God he has been humbled. Watching his drab broadcast to the nation for thirty minutes on Wednesday, October 8, 2003 he looked like a well beaten dog with its tail tucked between his legs, a shame air of an unrepentant dictator in a civilian dispensation.
MY MAIN MAN OSHIOMHOLE
- ADAMS Oshiomhole, due to politics might never be given a national honour (after all Gani just got SANship after over two or three decade of being qualified), but I have made him a Grand Commander of the Nigerian Masses (G.C.N.M). Comrade Oshiomhole has proved that he understands the thinking of Nigerians. He has proved that he has compassion for our people. He has also proved that he is beyond' corruption. I salute this man and I hope that in 2007 despite the clamour for the Maradona and Atiku, we shall look inwards and pick Adams Oshiomhole to be our president. We must do away with money politics and stand behind Adams Oshiomhole, G.C.N.M. It worked in Poland.
BIG MOUTH FEMI FANl KAYODE
EACH time I hear this guy Femi Fani-Kayode talk he gets on my nerves. He talks with compassion about his master no doubt, but shows he hates Nigerians. He strongly believes only his master is right. I feel sorry for him because posterity will judge him in the same mould as his oga. The other day on NTA2 Channel 5, he abused our dear Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as a man who was not well brought up and therefore, lacking in manners. But we all know whose background is questionable. No Nigerian can say Oshiomhole has ever been treated for any form of addiction, I know Femi will decode this. It’s shameful that a young man like Femi who is in government for the first time after struggling so hard to be inside is abusing a man who is fighting for the Nigerian masses.
Before picking the wrong target he had earlier thrown his feeble punches at Afenifere, but that Baba just ignored him I think for his late father’s sake. I wish Femi Fani-Kayode luck. The happy ending is that Femi and his boss lost shamefully on the recent fuel hike while Oshiomhole and his colleges won.
ALL HAIL AIT
I am yet to hear AIT won any awards. But the issue yet again is that AIT is the champion of Nigerian masses. Time and again AIT has shown itself the station that has stood on the side of the Nigerian masses. While the other stations will be looking for sponsors to air public oriented programmes AIT will I cancel its advertised programmes to air masses oriented programmes, most times live. AIT and Raymond Dokpesi: are the champions of our democracy, we need more people like him to move Nigeria forward.
NTA, SHAME ON YOU
I am particularly pissed off at NTA particularly Yinka Craig and Sadiq Daba. They spent over three hours every morning during the build up to the suspended strike talking all kinds of rubbish and they did not think it proper to bring Oshiomhole, the NLC President on air to talk about the illegal price hike. Instead, they brought one descript fellow who says he’s Femi Fani-Kayode who was abusing Adams Oshiomhole and they could not caution him. Yinka Carig and Sadiq, you messed up, big time.
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Fani-Kayode had agreed that having Mr. Ekundayo Asaju shot would be suspicious. He proposed that the preferred way would be to stage his killing as an accident. Two methods came to his mind: ARSON or the POISONING of the central water supply of his residence wherever he lived.
Fani-Kayode got exasperated with waiting on my regular seemingly unending ‘progress reports’ and fumed with urgency. During one of his regular libidinous binges in an Apapa hotel, he secretly called up some old-time narcotic-day friends, who recommended some mercenary thugs in Apapa to help him ‘fix’ whoever was troubling him. He gave the impression that he needed the thugs to just beat up and roughen somebody, but my insider amongst the group tipped me off and kept me posted with every move that was made in this grizzly affair. Bottom line is that Ekundayo Asaju would have been killed on the spot, by whatever violent means necessary.
The plot was to lure Ekundayo Asaju out for a scoop with a fictitious British national who was a regular visitor to Nigeria, who was impressed with the journalist’s work and wanted to meet with him for an interview. This was for Fani-Kayode the easiest and oldest trick in the book to exterminate a journalist eager to get information.
As this plot was revealed to me, I immediately intervened by secretly causing conflicting telephone calls to go to the journalist and to go to the leader of his ‘mercenary squad’ who was funded and equipped with new GSM phones and lines by Fani-Kayode for this project. Through these interventions, I ensured that there was never a time where Ekundayo Asaju met with this “British” national at any agreed rendezvous. I sent messages to Ekundayo Asaju to warn him never to pursue a meeting with any individual unknown to him unless it was in broad daylight in his office.
Within a fiery 3-week period, the mercenary group changed the cover identity of the bait and changed the meeting venues to which Ekundayo Asaju was lured several times. As fast as the changes occurred, I was just as fast in engineering anonymous warnings to Ekundayo Asaju. In this way I caused confusion in this dastardly plot. Femi Fani-Kayode became frustrated with his emergency mercenary squad and their constant failure. After all, this plot was contracted in supposed secrecy from me, his C.S.O. My inside informant finally confirmed that the project was terminated and deemed a FAILURE, as it was impossible to lure Ekundayo Asaju to his death. Fani-Kayode then finally resorted back to my more professional approach to this deadly project. As usual, I manipulated and deceived him with loads of unending “progress reports” that did not end with a kill.
One full year later, I personally met with Ekundayo Asaju at the end of 2004. When I mentioned a few important dates to him, he immediately brought out his diary and his phone, showing me the threats he received, the mysterious calls and warnings and a catalogue of strange events, which he had taken note of. He was only to realize then, for the first time, how close he was to his death. I continued to be in touch with him over the years and as eager as he was for me to go public, I assured him that the time would be right someday. Now is the time.
Even the devil is said to come into the presence of God and other celestial beings. What comes to mind is a Christian service at Aso Rock Villa chapel on Sunday, November 9, 2003, which I attended with Femi Fani-Kayode. President Obasanjo took the scriptural reading for the day. In admiration for his late wife, Stella, Obasanjo stated “that every new day with her, amounted to marrying her again.” Professor Jerry Gana read the announcements.
We were back in November 2003—in the thick of assassinations plots targeted at Mrs. Oluremi Oyo and Ekundayo Asaju. Then all the schemes came to a screeching halt a day after the Sunday service on November 9, 2003 at the Aso Rock Villa Chapel.
Fani-Kayode attended a courtesy call by the board of THISDAY SOUTH AFRICA and THISDAY Nigeria to President Obasanjo at the State House Abuja. He came out of the meeting distraught and riled, a Thisday newspaper copy in his hand.
The newspaper edition of November 10, 2003 had reported how Fani-Kayode allegedly caused a man to be detained at the Apapa Police station over faulty mobile phones.
ATTACHED BELOW IS THE NOVEMBER 10TH, 2003 THISDAY NEWSPAPER REPORT OF THE DETENTION INCIDENT MARKED AS DOCUMENT 3
Fani-Kayode in Power Show
·Detains a man at Lagos police station over faulty telephone hand setBy Godwin Ifijeh
Special Assistant to President Olusegun Obasanjo, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, has ordered a man to be detained at a Lagos police station all through last week without bail for allegedly selling a faulty telepone hand set to him.Fani-Kayode, ?????a police source at the Apapa Police Station, where Mr. Nnamdi Uyanna, Treasurer, Apapa Chapter of the Police Community Relations Committee (PCRC), was held since Wednesday last week without bail, had ordered his arrest and detention, leaving strict instruction that the man was not to be released until he so instructed, on the charge that he sold a faulty mobile telephone hand set to him.As the account had it, the presidential assistant bought the GSM hand set from the hand set dealer in Apapa, used it successfully and sent it back after two weeks to complain that it was faulty. He was said to have told Uyanna to either replace it with a new one or fix it for him, but the PCRC man declined, arguing that he could only have it fixed at his (Fani-Kayode's) expense because he could not tell what happened to it after two weeks of purchasing it from him.Uyanna's position was said to have angered the president's man, who asked him several times if he knew who he was, before threatening to deal severely with him unless he replaces the hand set or repair it at his own expense.With the PCRC man not replacing the handset or repairing it, the special assistant was said to have ordered his arrest at the Apapa police station last Wednesday and left strict instruction that the man was not to be released until he so directed.Realising who Fani-Kayode was on his arrest, Uyanna was said to have got his people to fix the hand set by last Thursday, but Fani-Kayode's Personal Assistant (PA), who he left behind to monitor the case, was still bent on having the man incarcerated at the station until his boss instructs that he was released.The man, who was seen behind the counter at the station on Friday afternoon without a dress on, was every inch sombre, and was heard saying openingly: "If I had known that the man was Mr. President's man with powers to make and unmake, I would not have mind even giving him a new hand set, not withstanding the fact that he had used it for two weeks after he bought it before returning to claim that it was faulty and had to be replaced or repaired by me".Several efforts to reach the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) or the Divisional Crime Officer (DCO) on the incident were futile last Friday as both men were said to be unavailable, but a source at the station said the case had become more political than what was reported against Uyanna at the station. The source, who claimed senior officers of the station were not happy at the situation and had told the P.A. to Fani Kayode to reach his boss and end the matter urgently, said the P.A., even though the hand set man had already repaired their hand set, was still coming to the station to threaten to deal with the man openly before policeman. Neither Fani-Kayode nor his P.A. could be reached for their own side of the story as at press time.
As I mused in my mind and chuckled at the fright and panic that had overwhelmed the usually boisterous and arrogant Fani-Kayode, he immediately suggested that we return to Lagos the next day for him to affect damage control measures.
Attached here-in are two ADC plane tickets for flight from Abuja to Lagos on 11th November, 2003, for Femi Fani-Kayode as ‘FANI-KAYODE/CHF’ and me under a cover name of ‘WHITE T.’. MARKED AS DOCUMENT 4 (a) and (b)
Unfortunately for the victim in that saga (Mr Nnamdi Uyanna), his overnight detention in the Apapa police cell, the horrific stories by Femi Fani-Kayode’s police stooges of how extremely powerful ‘Baba’s Boy’ Fani-Kayode was, and the refusal of the senior Police officer who effected his detention to release him on bail had provoked him under extreme panic and anxiety, to write a letter of undertaking and an apology to Fani-Kayode over the incident. This letter in question was in my custody and is what formed the crux of Fani-Kayode’s successful ‘damage control measure’ with the media houses that reported that story. I am very conversant with the event and the facts surrounding it and that issue is yet a story for another day. I still have the original hand-written letter by the victim in that saga, but this, in itself, is a revealing story, that will name all the Police and SSS contacts at the top, middle and lower echelons, under Femi Fani-Kayode’s servitude, how he used them and the absurdity that actually led to that incident.
With this successful damage control in the media, Fani-Kayode was emboldened once again and was yet about to unleash a series of arrests and detentions for staffs and anybody whom he felt displeased with.
Five months into this theatre of unfathomable insanity, I knew there was no way to cut off from Fani-Kayode without huge reprisals. Thus I started accumulating documentary evidence of his indiscretions and prepared myself for the end of this risky journey and the inevitable battle that was bound to ensue. To that effect, I tendered my resignation from the SSS on September 11, 2003 to the SSS at its national headquarters Annex Lagos, headed by Mrs. A.Z Sule who was a devoted fan of Fani-Kayode. She posited that he was luring me out with money. I refuted her suggestion and maintained that as my letter had stated, I wanted to go back to private life and further my academic pursuits.
I was however ordered to remain as his C.S.O until my discharge was approved and issued. While I awaited that discharge since September 2003, the cycle of events, close calls and adventure continued till the 10th November, 2003 Thisday newspaper report. Just eleven days after that media report and after a successful spin by Fani-Kayode, I had to intervene in one amongst many dicey situations by buying him a hair cream which he initially commissioned to be purchased for him through a barber at Avondale Thistle Bar salon situated at 36 Marine Road, Apapa, just adjacent to his house. He had already sent instructions to have the barber arrested and detained for delaying in the purchase of the cream—but, as usual, on trumped up and fictitious criminal charges.
As Fani-Kayode headed for Abuja on the 21st of November 2003, I telephoned the SSS NHQ Annex Ikoyi, Lagos and informed them that I was disobeying the orders to remain as his C.S.O and was returning to office duties to await my discharge.
I had stepped in too deep, knew too much and had plenty of secrets. The usual road out of such a quagmire was flight, imprisonment through all sorts of fabrications, or through a coffin.
After Fani-Kayode had failed to get the SSS to compel my return to him by fiat, his first attack came on 2nd December, 2003 when two of his police stooges telephoned me to inform me that they were in the office of the then DC OPS Lagos State Police Command Mr John Haruna who has summoned me to report to his office immediately. I asked them to tell the super cop DC OPS John Haruna that if he had any issues with me, he should procure a warrant for my arrest, send me a formal invitation in writing or correspond with the SSS formally and that I had nothing to discuss with him and would not honour such a summon.
Since I was unshaken by the purported summons of DC-OPS Mr John Haruna, another strategy was expectedly on the way. Fani-Kayode intensified his attack a week after that, in a heavily worded petition to the SSS NHQ Annex Ikoyi Office alleging that I extorted money from a Police Officer whom he freely gave a letter of recommendation.
FIND ATTACHED AS DOCUMENT 5
He also alleged that I was involved in the illegal procurement of live ammunition from some policemen and that another policeman duly informed him.
Unknown to me, the SSS Director Mrs A. Z Sule, on receiving the petition jumped for joy at the chance to “nail that useless boy” as she allegedly retorted and had immediately ordered the SSS Armourer and ballistics expert to examine the fire-arm I had returned to the armory and to check the live ammunition I returned, to confirm if it bore the unique serial number of all SSS ammunition issued to me. He returned a clean report, stating that the barrel of the weapon I returned was rusty and the weapon was not fired within the time I handled it and the ammunition was SSS standard issue.
I was immediately asked to give a written statement of defense and in doing so I summarily mentioned a range of Fani-Kayode’s indiscretions and maintained that his attack was expected, because I had refused to facilitate his wanton abuse of power and this informed my decision to quit the SSS as evidenced by my September 2003 resignation that was still pending. I further stated that I would not provide any documentary evidence apart from citing the Thisday media report of his abuse of power by causing the detention of a mobile phone seller unless called upon to do so by the SSS headquarters in Abuja, at which stage I would have already taken the fight to a regular court of law. Then again, I was careful to reveal only some aspects of his indiscretions, for obvious reasons.
In relentless pursuit of an indictment, Mrs A.Z Sule ordered a team of SSS operatives to conduct a search at my 1004 estate residential apartment. My house was thoroughly combed electronically and manually for firearms and ammunition and they found nothing.
By the time my written statement arrived the Director Mrs A. Z Sule’s desk, she was reportedly dumbfounded and bewildered by the nature of the indiscretions I mentioned in my written statement.
She was still so eager to impress her revered idol Fani-Kayode that she sent a signal to the Apapa Area Police Command asking them to investigate me over the petition. I was subsequently accompanied to the Area B Command, Apapa by an SSS team.
After my written statement, which bore a few lines, stating that the allegations against me were baseless and fictitious, and denying the commission of any of the crimes alleged by Fani-Kayode, the Area Commander, who was just recently posted there, had an interview with the accompanying SSS team and me. In his remark, he said he could not understand how in the first place, the SSS was asking him (the Police) to investigate their own and why a government VIP could allege that his SSS C.S.O extorted from a policeman, and solicited for and illegally procured live ammunition from a policeman and yet it was another policeman who reported all this to him.
He stated that his policemen had given their statements denying any knowledge of what the petitioner Femi Fani-Kayode was talking about and that he found this whole petition absolutely ridiculous. I thanked the man for his candidness and assured him that the attack was expected because I knew too much about the petitioner and I was not the first and would not be the last victim of his persecution. He bade us farewell and we returned to the SSS NHQ Annex Ikoyi, where the Director Mrs A Z Sule was briefed.
Sources within the higher SSS hierarchy at the NHQ Annex Ikoyi, hinted that Mrs A.Z Sule had telephoned Fani-Kayode and probably provided him with a copy of my written statement of defence. Fani-Kayode obviously knew the statement had some other chilling aspects not included, but it was unanimously agreed that it was damaging enough if leaked to the press. Furthermore, my refusal to include any hard documents and citing only the November 10th, 2003 Thisday newspaper report of the phone seller detention, meant I knew it would be suppressed from exposure once in SSS custody. In summary, I was a few steps ahead of Fani-Kayode.
This unwholesome influence over the SSS why any previous intelligence reports written ON or FOR Fani-Kayode by me, would have been disastrous. Femi Fani-Kayode’s attack had collapsed like a pack of cards, but I knew the storm wasn’t over and was now preparing to confront the SSS who had many tactics of dispensing with an operative.
When riding on a tiger’s back, one must be prepared to end up in its belly. As revealing as my statement of defense to the SSS was, there was still a whopping lot that I deliberately did not mention for obvious reasons.
A few days later, the drama continued and an associate of Femi Fani-Kayode approached me with the following offers:
1. Not to pursue the issue to Abuja or the courts.
2. To prepare to receive a DG SSS National Award for Bravery and Gallantry, a double promotion and a 4 yr automatic study leave for my first degree with full pay should I decide to remain in the SSS.
3. Should I insist on leaving the SSS, collect a N1m (One Million Naira) cash parting gift from Femi Fani-Kayode.
ALL ON THE CONDITION THAT I TURN OVER EVERYTHING I HAD IN BLACK AND WHITE ON FEMI FANI-KAYODE THAT COULD EMBARRASS HIM OR THE GOVERNMENT IN THE FUTURE.
On issue Number 1, I reminded Fani-Kayode’s emissary that I was only responding to his attack and even then, had been economical with the scope of my defense.
On issue Number 2, I cast my mind back on one memorable occasion where I displayed bravery and gallantry that even amazed me till this very day and told the emissary this story:
I was barely seven (7) months old in the job as an SSS operative when, in 2001, I was on a presidential advance party team to Bayelsa State where President Obasanjo was scheduled for a state visit that was steeped in various magnitudes of security threats. I was armed with a pistol, 16 rounds of live ammunition, and a communications device. The operational directive during the briefing in our state command by our Head of Operations was that, we were to ascertain the security threats, neutralize them if possible, but if under siege, first ensure a radio communication that the threat is insurmountable, defend self and flee, but NOT BE CAPTURED ALIVE. This was Obasanjo’s first state visit after the 1999 Odi massacre.
I was assigned to serve under two superior SSS officers of the Police equivalent rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and Superintendent of Police (SP) who incidentally were indigenes of Bayelsa state. The two superior SSS officers refused to disembark from the speedboat to our assigned station in Wilberforce Island for fear of being killed. I boldly refused to flee like the two much older men who had about two decades on the job. Against the reservation of the COMMANDANT of the SSS operational region covering our assigned station, I headed out alone to the vast land mass of swamp, forest, and desolation, surrounded by an oppressed and impoverished people still wreathing under the pain of the Odi massacre of 1999.
This assignment was one of the first and yet biggest tests of the SSS under Obasanjo as the success of that presidential visit through a presidential directive was hinged solely on SSS’s operational leadership and direction. To this effect, the presidential order superceded rank and para-military/ force hierarchy. Thus, in the absence of the two fleeing SSS superior officers, I single handedly assumed tactical command of men of the MOBILE POLICE (Mopol) Squadron 28 Umuahia and men of the 343 Elele Regiment of the Nigerian Army who were deployed there. After a drawing out a full operation order and personally meeting the community leaders, I ensured that the location was set for the presidential visit within 48 hrs of my arrival there. Simple and subtle diplomacy was all it took to garner the support of the host community towards the presidential visit, as might and brawn would have been offensive and provocative.
The then DG SSS Col Kayode Are (rtd) arrived the site in a helicopter just a few hours before the arrival of the President on the morning of 15th march, 2001. The DG SSS met with me and the other two superior SSS officers who had just returned from hiding, to a completely finished advance party operation.
In his interaction with the three of us, none of the other two senior SSS men had any answers to any of his questions, as they were obviously not on ground to provide any information to the DG SSS. The answers were flowing from the youth amongst their midst, which was me. The DG SSS asked my name and my State Command and was satisfied that everything was under control and boarded the helicopter and took off.
Even when President Obasanjo arrived the site, his security team was amazed at the youth who was entirely responsible for the President’s every move. In fact, the security alert was so heightened that the President would not be allowed to walk on any surface or enter any enclosure unless I did so first, as I virtually led them by the hand.
By the time the visit was done, President Obasanjo was presented with a souvenir pair of construction gloves. We had barely taken a five-meter walk after that presentation when President Obasanjo signaled one of his highly ranked security details to beckon to me. When I approached the Commander-in-Chief, he handed me that souvenir construction glove and smiled. The President and his entourage departed safely and successfully. I couldn’t have been more satisfied with what was accomplished in that visit and this touching yet memorable encounter. This was the second time I was given a pair of gloves as a gift. The first was a 16-ounce boxing glove in 1998 by the young Samuel Peters, who has risen to become the WBC heavyweight world champion. The next was by the Commander-in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on 15th March, 2003.
As if that was not enough adventure, the two senior SSS operatives immediately commandeered the SSS speed boat and abandoned me in Wilberforce island, as I overheard them discussing the pursuit of some ‘moratorium’ promised them by a chairman of a neighboring local government area. This left me with no option than to navigate through the treacherous creeks by canoe and one-engine ferries, through a ten (10) hour overnight ride (on a journey that took only 2 hours by speed boat from Yenogoa), through different ferries via Ogoibiri, Mein-Oyaikiri, Ammasoma and eventually to Yenogoa—risking a 1 in 3 chances of a boat mishap, which claimed lives on a daily basis and which ended the life of one of the Local Government Chairmen, just days before.
I arrived Yenogoa by day-break of 16th March 2001, just on time to halt the S.O.S signal that was prepared to declare me MISSING IN ACTION. This breath-taking adventure did not earn me a DG SSS’s national award. After all, I was doing my job. On what basis was this Femi Fani-Kayode’s engineered-DG SSS national award going to be? HIDING HEINOUS CRIMES OBVIOUSLY.
On issue NUMBER 3, I declined his generous offer and declared that I was still insistent on leaving the SSS, which had now become more mischievous in a democracy than any preceding military regime.
I knew I was under constant surveillance and the minute any of those documents left my custody, I was as good as a walking corpse. It would take nothing to be taken out and shot dead at any time by government or civilian assassins.
I declared to this emissary that all the documents that could embarrass Femi Fani-Kayode in my custody were safely in the grasp of an individual with massive worldwide media connections and all the events I witnessed as C.S.O to Femi Fani-Kayode were documented from my first day on the job. I warned that, should I disappear and be incommunicado for any 60-day period, or should I be killed under questionable circumstances, those stories and documents would roll out in the media uninhibited and I would do my damage from the hollows of the grave. As I re-iterated, this was my “INSURANCE POLICY.”
Those documents were my only wild card and this was my chance to send a strong message across to purchase enough time to advance my fight to leave the SSS.
With this attack contained and my discharge not issued, I knew I had been MARKED FOR DEATH and the storm was far from over. Many good people with ears on the ground within top SSS hierarchy had advised me to be very wary of JOINT OPERATIONS WITH OTHER AGENCIES, OR EVEN JOINT OPERATIONS WITH OTHER COMMANDS OF THE SSS and I should feign ailment if need be when such assignments arise and avoid them, as those assignments were the type I would NEVER RETURN ALIVE from. Sure enough, one joint operation in each category with the Police and with another SSS command came between December 2003 and January 2004. I tactfully headed out for field intelligence gathering with my phone and walkie-talkie switched off long before volunteers could be enlisted from the SSS Command I served in.
This is the point where an operative is pushed to the limit to AWOL (Absent Without Leave) and flee. That in itself is a life sentence for which one would be branded a TERRORIST, SPY, TREASONABLE FELON, OR DEFECTOR, tried summarily in absentia and probably be executed secretly, whenever you materialized. I was not allowed to leave Lagos, even when the DG SSS lifted embargoes on 2003 annual vacations falling at the end of the year. Neither was a casual leave approved for me to see my then ailing father—despite the fact I was entitled both to annual leave and casual leave. The SSS was now anticipating that I might take flight. The noose was tightening and the rope was getting shorter as the clock ticked away. Killing me was too costly, yet what to do with me was still under contemplation as my letter of resignation of 11th September 2003 was still on SSS management’s table.
The threat of extermination when one knows too much and when the powers-that-be have one’s life in their hands is real, but when one is determined to break free as a consequence of refusing to partake in a meal of perfidy, such a fight will lead to freedom, even if it is through a casket. Then again, when an individual is compromised and dines in the putrid dish of shedding innocent blood, the world will hear NOTHING and some secrets will transit to the grave or be whispered on dying beds.
I stayed on, watched my back and continued to seek for a chance to provoke the SSS to expel me from its fold. This chance came in February 2004 when I objected to the kind of treatment meted out on an SSS detainee, which on humanitarian grounds caused me to breach security protocols to buttress my point. This was sacrilege in SSS books but I boldly admitted my actions and gave my reasons.
This gave SSS the grounds to have me investigated at the Lagos NHQ Annex Command level where I was eventually taken to the SSS NHQ Abuja to be incarcerated and given an orderly room trial with the hanging penalty of DISMISSAL. At the SSS NHQ the clock of my incarceration incommunicado had commenced yet the contentious issue was not even my actions concerning an SSS detainee, which was resolved within one week of my incarceration in Abuja, but about Femi Fani-Kayode.
WHAT WENT ON WITH HIM? WHAT WERE MY INTENTIONS? AM I STILL LOYAL TO THE SSS? DO I STILL INTEND TO LEAVE THE SSS?
My incarceration went past the one-month mark and I was bombarded with interviews and interrogations and finally taken up to meet some superior officer, whose task it was to specifically determine my risk-level in respect of Femi Fani-Kayode’s issue.
As this huge man of Northern extract (who introduced himself under a generic cover name) sat behind his desk, with a tape recorder concealed behind his table calendar, asking the above questions, his first line was that he was aware that I had tendered a resignation letter to the SSS and that I intended to leave the SSS of which I acknowledged. He stated that being loyal would mean, bringing in all I had on Femi Fani-Kayode and even undertaking at penalty of criminal liability and imprisonment NEVER to talk about Femi Fani-Kayode. As a matter of fact, he stated that I should assist the SSS to thwart any media exposure on Femi Fani-Kayode that would be embarrassing to Femi Fani-Kayode and the Presidency by extension.
I told the man (and by extension the SSS), that I could not guarantee that any of the victims of Femi Fani-Kayode’s indiscretions would not go public, and that I did not want to be held responsible over what I had no control over. I insisted that I had done my best in national service and desired to return to private life and my academic pursuits.
The man now gave me the same ‘DG SSS national award-double promotion-4 year automatic study leave with full pay offer, which I was already given in the eve of Femi Fani-Kayode’s failed counter-attack at me in Lagos, in December 2003. I wasn’t surprised that this DG SSS NATIONAL AWARD OFFER WAS NOW RESURFACING DIRECTLY FROM A HIGH RANKING SSS PERSONNEL AT ITS NATIONAL HEAD QUARTERS IN ABUJA.
I still declined the offer and maintained that I would be happier and at peace outside the service. The man now asked me to narrate these indiscretions of Femi Fani-Kayode’s and before I got a quarter way into the selected story he fell asleep and I glanced right over his desk and read a full page of his interrogation guideline. Then I realized that the option of NEVER WALKING OUT OF SSS INCARCERATION ALIVE was real. I waited for the slumbering man to awaken and ask for me to be escorted back to the underground cell where I was incarcerated in.
I played a high stake game with the SSS as I swam through very treacherous waters, which started on the first day I was assigned to Femi Fani-Kayode. At this juncture, the SSS figured that my DISMISSAL would destroy my credibility to go public as my untimely or suspicious death could blow the lid on Femi Fani-Kayode’s atrocities which he Femi Fani-Kayode had already obviously told them WAS NOT IN MY CUSTODY AND IN AN ANTICIPATED INSURANCE POLICY TO WREAK MORE HAVOC SHOULD I BE EXTERMINATED.
This was the lesser of two evils and thankfully better than leaving in a casket. As my incarceration in the SSS national Headquarter’s underground bunker was gradually approaching a two-month time line, the SSS eventually took a decision and ended my incarceration with a DISMISSAL.
Attached herein is the DISMISSAL LETTER FROM THE SSS MARKED AS DOCUMENT 6.
The SSS detainee on whose account I saw a perfect opportunity to force my exit from SSS in 2004, eventually gave a newspaper interview of his ordeal with the SSS upon his release from detention.
It is not surprising that the Publisher of that newspaper was arraigned on 3-count charges of terrorism in January 2007.
Funny enough, it surprises me that the issue of my superficially controversial exit from the SSS, is yet to be canvassed by Femi Fani-Kayode, who spent well over a year after my exit from SSS threatening me in Nigeria and gloating over what he claimed was his victory over me and ensuring I was under surveillance until sometime in late 2005. It is obvious that the story of that SSS detainee would eventually re-surface, bringing with it a dust of official high-handedness, from an ‘insider’ perspective at a much more damaging magnitude for the SSS at management level.
It makes one imagine what the value or authenticity of SSS ‘security reports’ under the leadership of Col Kayode Are (rtd) was worth. At best, there is only one aspect of these sordid tales that the DG SSS was unaware of, and yet Femi Fani-Kayode was given a clean bill of health on the ‘security report’ that cleared him to be screened for ministerial appointments which he successfully got three consecutive times. Even the legislative screening committees could only come up with flimsy questions about Femi Fani-Kayode’s stay in Ghana in the 90’s and a N15million naira grant to Femi Fani-Kayode’s office as Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs from the Nigerian Maritime Authority (NMA). Femi Fani-Kayode explained it away as being collected under ‘due process’ through a consultancy firm. At a later time, I will provide an insight into the origin of Femi Fani-Kayode’s thievery via NMA grants, which no one has bothered to verify the destination of those grant monies, which are also tax payers’ funds.
If at the period in question, Femi Fani-Kayode with all his propensities and at personal expense (without control of huge votes and tax payers’ monies) had solicited me for the murder of Col Abubakar Umar, Mr Ekundayo Asaju of ENCOMIUIM MAGAZINE in Lagos, and Mrs.Oluremi Oyo in Abuja, pray tell, WHAT DID HE DO/NOT DO AS A FEDERAL CABINET MINISTER UNDER OBASANJO, WITH UNLIMITED INFLUENCE OVER SECURITY APPARATUSES AND DIRECT CONTROL OVER BILLIONS OF NAIRA IN TAX PAYERS MONIES?
Dele Giwa, Pa Alfred Rewane, Kudirat Abiola, Suliat Adedeji, Mama Tejuosho, Harry Marshal, Barnabas and Abigail Igwe, Odunnayo Olagbaju, Hassim Olajokun, Aminosari Dikibo, Andrew Ogom, Bola Ige, Olusegun Oladimeji, Funsho Williams, Ayodeji Daramola, Jerry Agbeyegbe and Godwin Agbroko are amongst many other innocent citizens including a few honest and brave policemen and women, law enforcement officials and members of the armed forces who fell to the assassins bullets and brutality.
With Femi Fani-Kayode’s realization of my continued existence, I am certain that ‘rent-a-testimony’ candidates will avail him at many quarters and records would mysteriously start disappearing, particularly the ones in police custody. But the truth is that, there are so many innocent victims of his absurdity who will remain far away from his reach. As sure as a few lowly corruptible few will exist, there are many who will want nothing short of justice for the irreparable damage he did to them. While people like Femi Fani-Kayode and many government agents alike are quick to blow hot air about suing to “protect their good names”, they have sufficient resources to sue under several international conventions. I delightfully urge and invite them to please make a date with me in any court, anywhere in the world or in Nigeria, where I will eagerly dispatch representatives and legal counsel to accept service and court proceedings in their bids to clear “their good names”.
POSTCRIPT: The tragic chapter in our national history has given rise to a new era that is superficially trying to go the opposite direction of the Obasanjo dispensation. But the Umar Yar’Adua government is trapped in the contradiction of the scandalous election that gave birth to it even as it seeks to demonstrate the least semblance of credibility. It has upturned many of its predecessor’s obnoxious transactions, changed policies, and pledged to offer better government. But it has not done much to unmask the evil that the likes of Fani-Kayode perpetrated.
The two institutions that are now making considerable progress in returning power and confidence to the citizenry in Nigeria are the media and the judiciary. Some people within these two sectors are constantly raising the bar of accountability in the affairs of government and their agents.
In my opinion, the era of hypocrisy clothed in eloquent rhetoric is still far from over, as monstrously dark elements still exist in the Nigerian judiciary and mass media. That is why people like me who witnessed some of the savage acts of those in government owe a duty to speak up, to reveal the truth and unmask evil actors.
On or about August 26, 2006, two of the top representatives of the Nigerian intelligence and law enforcement community appeared before the senate to be grilled on the state of insecurity in the nation. The two were Col. Kayode Are (rtd), the erstwhile Director General of the SSS, and Mr. Sunday Ehindero, the erstwhile Inspector General of Police (IGP). While the myriad problems facing the Nigeria Police are easy for even a street vendor to discuss, Colonel Are of the SSS, who is known for his eloquence and charisma, must have bedazzled the legislators with fabulous security jargon spiced with befuddling terminologies. One pictures the legislators giving him a standing ovation (the type that was prevalent during the 2007 legislative screening of ministerial nominees). Furthermore, the legislators must have absolved the erstwhile DG of the SSS on the perilous security situation in Nigeria.
But those of us who were members of the SSS itself have a different perception of the erstwhile DG SSS. His beguiling presentation to the National Assembly could not have impressed us and other discerning observers.
The fact is that the SSS under Colonel Kayode Are was a colossal failure. Under his direction, the SSS he led for eight years was complicit in extra-judicial killings when he brazenly declared his knowledge of the existence of KILLER SQUADS IN SEVERAL STATES IN NIGERIA.
Colonel Kayode Are even asserted that he had written intelligence reports on the topic. He thereby passed the buck to his colleague, the ex-IGP, who claimed he was still expecting such a report despite officially requesting for the said document. The DG of the SSS claimed that the SSS was solely responsible for ‘security intelligence’ while his police colleague was mandated to deal with ‘crime intelligence’. It was balderdash, pure and simple. Is there any threat to security that eventually is not a crime in our statute and criminal code? Does the SSS lack the power to arrest, search, detain, investigate and prosecute? The answer is obvious: the SSS does have those powers as enshrined by the constitution. Its powers are even extended under a statute signed into law by Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar on May 23rd 1999. Called INSTRUMENT NO. 1 of May 23rd, 1999, the statute stipulates the roles of the SSS to include ‘SUCH OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES AFFECTING INTERNAL SECURITY WITHIN NIGERIA AS THE PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER IN CHIEF MAY DEEM NECESSARY.’ It also gave the SSS POWERS TO COVER CRIMES AGAINST THE ECONOMY, VETTING OF WOULD-BE GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, PROTECTION OF V.I.Ps, MAINTENANCE OF LAW AND ORDER, PREVENTION AND DETECTION OF CRIMES AGAINST NATIONAL SECURITY’. Note that the underlined gave the SSS additional functions that intersected with, and in many cases were the same as, those of the police. I am not aware that that statute was EVER REPEALED or AMENDED.
The new DG SSS has lent more credence to the disgraceful and catastrophically woeful performance of his predecessor’s leadership of the SSS as he posited that the “SSS is now positioned to OPERATE WITHIN THE RULE OF LAW AND IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TENETS OF DEMOCRACY”. It makes one wonder what the SSS was practicing under Col. Kayode Are for eight good years, with billions of taxpayers’ funds at its disposal. Was there no rule of law in Nigeria at the time? Was there no democracy in Obasanjo’s 1999-2007 rulership? Whilst the SSS must have achieved something good in this dark, unfortunate and grizzly era, the agency achieved notoriety on account of all the wars it waged against journalists, media houses and anyone who carried a camera. With countless media men harassed, arrested and whisked away on trumped up charges, the SSS under Col. Kayode Are left a legacy of repression unmatched by even the most dreaded military regime in Nigeria’s history. Yet again, the number of politically motivated UNSOLVED assassinations reached historically unmatched records in comparison with all the previous governments in the 39 years preceding 1999.
The Nigerian media have been awash lately with the sensationally gruesome tales and confessions from the so-called late Gen. Sani Abacha’s killer squad. President Musa Yar’adua has ordered the re-opening of investigation into high-profile unsolved assassinations, of which the assassination of the late Bola Ige, a serving Attorney General of the Federation, topped the list.
Yar’adua has also ordered and re-ordered the withdrawal of police details attached to VIPs. He has decried the crime wave in Nigeria and has globe trotted seeking aid for the bastardized Nigeria Police Force. There is even talk at legislative quarters of ascertaining the activities of the dreaded Strike Force which was supposedly disbanded at the inception of Obasanjo’s administration but which is now believed to have been in operation and ‘useful’ to Obasanjo’s administration according to the infamous Sgt Barnabas Jabila a.k.a Sgt Rogers.
It beats my imagination how these cold-blooded killers and conspirators somehow managed to find a conscience, confess their evil deeds and become government ‘star prosecution witnesses’ against a select crop of suspects, who incidentally held key positions and roles in the government of the late Gen Sani Abacha.
Were these heinous crimes borne out of the unilateral decisions of the accused persons standing trial? Or were they OFFICIAL EXECUTIVE DECISIONS sanctioned by the regime of Gen Sani Abacha, which drew its strength from the PROVISIONAL RULING COUNCIL (PRC) of which Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar, the mid-wife of our current so-called NASCENT/ FLEDGING DEMOCRACY, was a senior ranking and serving member?
Unfortunately, Gen Sani Abacha is dead and gone, and now some of the trigger-happy men have miraculously started singing. A lot of the confessing hitmen are not only under Federal Government protective custody but have also implicated some members of the Abacha regime. Meanwhile, a Nigerian Federal Court at the instance of the Obasanjo administration barred Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar from making any disclosures on any matter relating to his administration or his predecessor’s. The government’s new desire for secrecy is rationalized by invoking the PUBLIC OFFICER’S PROTECTION ACT, OFFICIAL SECRECY ACT and a plethora of Acts which in themselves use clauses like ‘PUBLIC INTEREST’ and ‘CLASSIFIED MATTER’ to contradict section 36 (1) of the 1999 constitution of Nigeria, which gives citizens ‘rights to receive and input ideas and information without interference.’
Should one be surprised that Obasanjo, who himself is widely believed to be a victim of a draconian system of human rights violations, would constitute part of the instrumentality to a suspect OFFICIAL SECRECY?
To my understanding, this very ‘gag order’ issued by that Nigerian Federal Court invariably lent credence to the notion that any and all of the actions in the privy of Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar as Head of State or member of the then PRC, fell under EXECUTIVE DECISIONS AND OFFICIAL ACTIONS OF THE STATE, which included human rights violations and abuses, UNLAWFUL ORDERS and STATE SPONSORED ASSASSINATIONS.
Lest I forget: just recently, the Federal Government of Nigeria, which was not a party to an on-going civil suit filed in the USA against Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar over human rights violations, reportedly appeared on the scene as a knight in shining armor, to rescue the beleaguered general by paying an undisclosed amount as settlement to the plaintiffs in that suit. That jumbo payment brought the legal tussle matter to a blissful end.
Perhaps I should give Chief Obasanjo some credit. After all, under his administration, motions were made in passing THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION BILL. Curiously, Obasanjo bluntly refused to sign the bill into law, citing the need to further ‘define’ and ‘delineate’ the aspect of SECURITY. ‘Security’ is no doubt the umbrella under which despotic regimes have hidden to perpetrate all sorts of evil, while shielded by crafty incongruent statutes to avoid being accountable. If many of the so-called ‘security’ or ‘classified’ materials in the government’s custody were to be de-classified with some level of censorship as is done in the USA and many other parts of the world, the public would be treated to hilarious discoveries that border on triviality and ridiculousness. Included under the classified tomes are many mundane matters that are ABSOLUTELY IRRELEVANT AND WITH NO DIRECT CONNECTION TO THE INTERNAL SECURITY OF NIGERIA.
While the confessions of Sgt Rogers and his co-travelers continue to evoke bewilderment, the so-called ex-assassins canvassed many reasons for their criminal involvement in these state sponsored assassinations. The reasons range from FEAR OF BEING KILLED, FEAR OF LOSS OF JOBS, FEAR OF PERSECUTION, LOYALTY TO A SUPPOSED PATRIOTIC CALL and many more. In every regimented organization, be it armed forces, law enforcement, military or para-military, disobedience to a LAWFUL ORDER is a serious offence. However, an UNLAWFUL ORDER is not only void ab initio but UNLAWFUL as the word implies.
From my knowledge of the secret service the world over, its strength is not in might or numeric presence, but in pro-activeness, secrecy and covertness. On the issue of covertness, no security agency would ever assign a covert operation to an operative by fiat. The operative must first display the propensity for various magnitudes of covert assignments and will at his/her freewill nominate to oblige or decline any covert operation, particularly when it breaches the law and when those ORDERS ARE UNLAWFUL.
Is there more to all these confessions than meet the eye? Are there many more deep, dark and grizzly revelations shackled away and guarded by obnoxious statutes, debilitating public access and scrutiny of government affairs? I am certain there are and I am also certain that if any of the accused currently standing trial for the murder of Kudirat Abiola and the attempted murder of Felix Ibru suddenly start singing a different tune (like the type characterized by Olugbenga Damola Adebayo a.k.a Fryo’s volte face in the late Bola Ige murder saga) such an individual may never make it out of custody alive.
In any case, all the reasons they have posited, are reasons and realities that I also faced in the past—and even now face in a different dimension. Yet, I refused to be FEMI FANI-KAYODE’S ASSASSIN.
It is now common knowledge that the Yar’adua administration is in open fraternity with select leaders and members of armed militia groups, in its wobbling effort to stem the Niger Delta upheavals. Why haven’t these so-called Niger-Delta Militants, who have now been accorded statesmen status, told the public how they were used to butcher innocent men and women, law enforcement officers and political figures in a political system that was funded by “do- or -die” political leaders and their blood thirsty surrogates who are still alive and walking the streets today and who have plenty innocent blood on their hands? These exalted political thugs and blood thirsty criminals who have broken every law pertaining to violent crime, enjoy state protection, dine with Aso Rock’s top echelon and hide under the guise of ‘resource control’, ‘Niger Delta struggle’ and are given kid-glove treatment in the Nigerian Judiciary system, courtesy of the Federal Government of Nigeria. Need I add that genuine democrats, who have broken no law and are not associated with violence but hold divergent views about governance and canvass for self-determination and social justice, don’t share the same fate in our Nigeria of today? Late Tony Ene, a Bakassi self-determination activist, becomes vocal and ends up in a most suspicious car-crash, that can only be likened to the Dreaded Lt. Maliya Mungu’s Idi Amin-style car crashes of people that were termed as “Obote men” . Chief Ralph Uwazurike still grapples with the Nigerian Judiciary’s bail conditions on treason charges, when other well known regional war-lords, militant groups and armed vigilante groups and their leaders are moving about freely, bouncing around from one owambe to one chieftaincy title.
The factuality and accuracy of the recent US Government report on Nigeria could not have come at a better time.
Of what use does ‘Mr President’ Yar’adua’s order re-opening investigation over unsolved assassinations serve? When there are neither any untainted crime scenes nor forensic evidence to work with? Are we not back into the same worthless cycle of rhetoric?
If ‘Mr President’ Yar’adua sincerely seeks to resolve the countless assassinations that have riddled the land, HE SHOULD ANNOUNCE TO THE WHOLE WORLD WITH A SIGNED AND SEALED PRESIDENTIAL DECLARATION OF AMNESTY AND PROTECTION (the type now given to Sgt Rogers and his co-travelers on Government prosecution witness list) TO ANY, AND ALL WHO WERE ASSASSINS AND WHO INDEED KILLED AND ARE WILLING TO NAME THEIR SPONSORS.
A lot of big names will take flight, and many more will be mentioned. It is from that backdrop, we the public can now know where to direct intense scrutiny, when our security agencies will foot drag and bungle as usual. Or better still, provide a sincere forum where the victim’s families can have some closure and heal the pain of their tragic losses.
Though the Oputa panel came and went, only few revelations surfaced and that is because there are still several loopholes that could be exploited by the criminal and yet powerful sponsors of crime and assassinations, to eliminate the witnesses, who neither had, nor were guaranteed, special Government protection.
If Sgt Barnabas Jabila (aka Sgt Rogers) and his government assassin’ colleagues were in my shoes; Col Abubakar Umah, Mrs. Oluremi Oyo and Ekundayo Asaju (and probably many more innocent citizens) would have long been assassinated without any trace whatsoever.
Finally, for Sgt Rogers and his co-travelers, who have canvassed many warped reasons for their involvements in cold blooded murders and murder attempts, my story is a first hand real life experience of being in the same situation; a highly trained and highly skilled security operative, lured with money and clothed with disposition to state apparatus to be an assassin. Amidst grave dangers, intense persecution and well-calculated risks still stood for morality and conscience.
The metamorphosis of a Nigerian government assassin starts from a security operative with the propensity to kill for rewards or gain and who has no respect for the sanctity of human life. It then transcends to subservience and complicity to a bloodthirsty and power obsessed boss, who feeds on impunity and has the blessing and support of the government and its agencies. Finally, greed and a perfect opportunity, consummates this diabolic evolution. Even amidst this cycle, still lies the exclusive POWER OF CHOICE.
To all the souls of assassinated Nigerians, may you rest in peace and may your killers continue to know no peace. In addition to that list, I will include late Mr Victor John Uguru, a fine Christian, and bank auditor who was investigating a fraud but was slain in cold blood by a hail of assassins’ bullets in Onitsha in April 1998. He was working for the now defunct All States Trust Bank at an Onitsha branch. This young man was amongst many things, the first child of my mother and my brother. May his gentle soul, rest in peace as the struggle to liberate our society from the clutches of an evil clique, continues.
