JUNE 16 SOWETO MASSACRE ANNIVERSARY ARREST 4 ACTIVISTS REGAIN FREEDOM

JUNE 16 SOWETO MASSACRE ANNIVERSARY ARREST

4 ACTIVISTS REGAIN FREEDOM

H.T Soweto, National Coordinator, Education Rights Campaign (ERC)

Hassan Taiwo Soweto (National Coordinator, the Education Rights Campaign), Chinedu Bosah (National Secretary, Education Rights Campaign) Usman Oloyede (Former PRO, NANS Zone D) and Debo Adeniran (Chairman, Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders) were released on bail today at the Sabo Police Station, Yaba Lagos. Soweto and Chinedu are also members of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM)
They were arrested yesterday June 16, 2009 at Yaba while protesting against the under funding of education by the Yar' Adua capitalist government. June 16, 2009 is the 33rd anniversary of the Soweto Masacre in 1976 when the then South African Apartheid government unleashed terror on black youths protesting against imposition of racial measures in the education sector. Hector Pieterson - a 12-year-old boy - was shot dead by the Aparthied Police. Over the next two days, over 600 people including children and youths had been killed and injured as the protest swept over South Africa.
Students and youths under the auspices of the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) chose the 33rd anniversary of the gruesome massacre to begin a nationwide protest against under-funding of education, especially the low allocation to education in the 2009 budget. Right before the protest started, a contingent of heavily armed policemen, numbering about 100 had gathered at the gate of Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH) presumably to stop the protest. From indications, the policemen were invited to brutalize the protesters numbering about 25 by the Management of YABATECH with the willing conspiracy of the Acting DPO of Sabo Police Station, Yaba Mr. Tony O.A and the Lagos State Commissioner of Police Mr. Marvel Akpoyibo.
The manner of the arrest shows clearly that it was premeditated. The claim of the Police and the Yabatech Management was that the protesters wanted to disrupt the campus. Actually, the protest was billed to take off from Yabatech front gate but a combination of factors including the unwillingness of the right wing Union leadership of the institution and mobilization of police to the campus gate as early as 8 am dissuaded the protesters. Instead of Yabatech gate, the protesters started at Jibowu and marched through the road in front of Yabatech towards Herbert McCauley way from where they planned to visit other institutions around Yaba and Akoka communities. The protesters only stopped briefly at YABATECH gate to address pressmen who had gathered there in expectation of the protest, after the address the protesters continued on their march towards Herbert Macaulay way.
But as they reached Herbert Macaulay way, Debo Adeniran (Chairman, CACOL) who had been invited as a guest speaker was arrested. Few minutes before then, Chinedu Bosah had been harassed while distributing press statements to the press and circulating leaflets to the motorists and passers-by. Some copies of the statements and leaflets were snatched from him. Within a split second, the policemen swooped on the remaining protesters who had by now reached the side of Herbert Macauley way waiting to cross. At that spot, Hassan Taiwo Soweto was arrested; the Public Address System (PAS), with which he was addressing, seized and dragged to a waiting Police van. Also arrested at the same spot was Usman Oloyede (former PRO, NANS Zone D). The rest of the protesters scampered across the road with the police in hot pursuit. Chinedu Bosah was arrested, cruelly handcuffed and hit severally on the back with riffle butt.
After this, the Police took the arrested activists in two vans with siren blowing wildly to Area C Command, Iponri where they were detained till about 8 am this morning. At about 8 am, they were transferred to Sabo Police Station, Yaba where a one-count charge: conduct likely to cause breach of public peace was preferred against them. They were then taken to Chief Magistrate Court Yaba for arraignment but the judges and magistrates were at a seminar and so were not on seat. They were then taken back to Sabo Police Station Yaba where to their surprise they were released on bail to their lawyers including Segun Sango. They were asked to report daily at the Police Station until the case is settled.
The protesters were brutalized for their condemnation of the 2009 budget and its meager allocation to education. One key demand of the protest was that the government should increase allocation to education to at least 26% of the budget as recommended by UNESCO. According to the 2009 budget signed into law by the President early March this year, 7.2% was allocated to education while the salaries and allowances of 17, 474 political office holders totaling N1.13 trillion dwarfs the combined allocation to education (N224billion), Health (N103billion), Transport (N38billion), Works, housing and Urban development (N208billion). This is aside the huge allocation to defense.
The protest, which held successfully in two states (Osun and Oyo States) in Nigeria, had other demands including the call for reinstatement of all victimized student and staff activists, restoration of banned students' union bodies, provision of quality education at all levels, democratization of decision-making processes in schools, public ownership of the commanding heights of the economy under the democratic control and management of the working class people.
The protesters also demanded the immediate and unconditional release of 27 soldiers who have been unjustly sentenced into life imprisonment for embarking on peaceful protest over their lawful salaries and allowances that had been embezzled by some military officers, and an immediate end to attack by JTF on the harmless residents of the Niger Deltan communities.
In Osun State, over 4000 students of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife went on lecture boycott and held a protest march on the campus in support of the ERC's Day of Action and on local demands for improvement in water and electricity supply as well as for the reinstatement of victimized activists (Akinola Saburi, Orgumah Andrew Segun and Muyiwa Aderibigbe).
While the lecture boycott was on some students of the University mobilized in buses to Osogbo where they joined students from other institutions in the state for a joint protest to the State house of Assembly to submit a charter of demand to the state government for onward transmission to the Federal government. There was also heavy presence of Police at the venue of the protest and in fact comrade Kola Ibrahim (member of the DSM) and 3 others were briefly arrested but released immediately after which the police numbering hundreds and led by the State Commissioner of Police monitored about 100 protesters as they marched for about 7 kilometers to the State House of Assembly. In the course of the protest march a rally, addressed by various speakers including Waheed Lawal, Chairman, Campaign for Democratic and Workers Rights (CDWR) Osun State, Alfred Adegoke, Coordiantor, DSM Osun State, Rufus Oyatoro, Chairman Labour Party Osun State, Kola Ibrahim and other student leaders was held at the Correspondents Chapel Osogbo.
In Oyo State where about 25 students protested, reports has it that the protesters were not allowed togain entrance into the Government House to submit the charter of demand. There is no report of arrest. Also, activities held in University of Benin in Edo State and Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba Akoko in Ondo State
The Education Rights Campaign (ERC) had started organizing resistance against the budget since March this year starting from March 18 when the ERC held a press conference to call on the government to increase spending on education. Also, a petition was also submitted to the Minister of education calling government's attention to the issues.
Thereafter, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) issued a call to all students and youth to begin nationwide mass protest and lecture boycott from June 16, 2009, which is the anniversary of the Soweto massacre in 1976 in South Africa. Numerous posters and leaflets were produced and massively posted in schools in the Southwest, South South and a school in Eastern part of the country. Due to shortage of finance, it was impossible to reach out to more schools in the East and the North.
To mobilize change-seeking activists within the student movement, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) together with the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Students' Union organized an "All Nigerian Students Conference" on June 6, 2009, which attracted representatives of 11 tertiary institutions, 18 delegates from organisations and groups and leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) Zone D, leaders of the Joint Campus Committee (JCC) in Osun and Oyo States. There, the decision of a mass protest starting from June 16 was given further support with the JCC of both Oyo and Osun and the leadership of NANS Zone D promising to lend support.
This agreement of support notwithstanding, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) had frequently and equally at the conference made it clear that the leaders of NANS at all levels are corrupt, isolated from students and unwilling to challenge government neo-liberal policies on education. The mass of students and activists at the conference berated the NANS leaders in speeches and contributions but the conclusion of the conference was that the June 16 day of action will be the litmus test for the NANS Zone D leadership. Therefore, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) and the NANS Zone D were asked to mobilize for the protest and submit joint charter of demands to government of each States where the protest will take place for onward transmission to the Federal government.
Our conclusions raised about the unwillingness of the NANS leadership at all levels to struggle have again been confirmed by the June 16 protest. In Osun State where the protest was massive, it was due to the immense mobilization efforts of the ERC. Also, in Ondo, Lagos, Edo and Oyo States where protest and other activities held, this was due to the active efforts of DSM and ERC comrades. Even the NANS Zone D Coordinator was absent at the protest in Lagos for reasons yet unknown.
The arrest notwithstanding, we shall continue to mobilize for mass actions, protests demonstrations and lecture boycott until the demands are met. The June 16 action is just the beginning. The response of students to our call although not nationally, shows what can be achieved with redoubled efforts and mobilizations. While we shall continue to persuade elements in the NANS leadership to struggle, it is crystal clear that the struggle for adequate funding of education can only be won by organizing students from below under an alternative platform of struggle like the Education Rights Campaign (ERC). With the objective situation created by the economic crisis of world capitalism and its severe implications on the living standards of youths and working masses in a neo-colonial country like Nigeria, the possibility of building a movement of youths and working masses exist. Only a clear headed, focused, sacrificing and ideological leadership equipped with the philosophy and methods of Marxism is needed in the student movement and the labour movement to unite the economic demands of the masses with the political demand for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a socialist society where resources will be publicly owned, controlled and managed by the working people as against the anarchy of capitalist production.

Nigeria at 49: Speeding Backward – by Debo Adeniran

One had once observed that Nigeria has never been lucky to have good leaders even when it has all the human and material potentialities to be one of the greatest nations in the world. Like bad managers of good business, bad leaders have succeeded in ruining good fortunes that Nigeria is naturally endowed with. Mal governance of a people is Akin to mismanagement of a business. It leads to low capacity utilization, inadequate supervision and ineffective facility maintenance which often give room to higher level corruption. Corruption then dwindles capital impute which in turn leads to bankruptcy. A business outfit is bankrupt when it is unable to meet its financial obligations.

It no longer has control over its own affairs but has to take instructions from its creditors. The company may have so much quality goods to sell but only to the creditors who dictate the quantity they intend to buy for how much they are willing to pay. Such a company may only retain its name but the totality of its rights, its sovereignty has to be surrendered to the creditors who determine the very future of the outfit, whether to continue in business or be declared a failure and liquidated.

Dreams of our Fathers Truncated

The past forty-nine years of self governance in Nigeria had been years of dashed hopes, truncated dreams, distorted vision and misdirected aspiration for Nigerians. All the relief that came our way with the eventual release of the reigns of our governance from Britons to Nigerians was short-lived after all. Even when independence aided the quick enthronement of Nigeria as a republic where we are ruled by representatives elected by ourselves through a process decided by us, we our leaders found it difficult to enthrone true democracy in our polity. The relief was to explode on our faces as soon as the attempt to elect subsequent political leaders turned a democratic sham. The exercise led to various internecine which eventually plunged us into a needless civil war that truncated the dream of Nigeria becoming the true giant of Africa.

In the days of yore, even before petroleum was discovered in commercial quantities our fathers rely on agricultural produce like cocoa, coffee, palm produce, groundnut, rubber etc and solid minerals like coal, tin bauxite, clay etc for foreign exchange. And so much was achieved with what they got from the proceeds of their sales. Nigeria was put on the right track with which the lofty dreams could have been achieved. Nigeria became pioneer country in Africa in establishment of much sought after institutions and social infrastructures such as tertiary citadels of learning, sophisticated electronic and print mass media, housing and industrial estates, quality road, rail and airway networks, stadia, skyscrapers, etc. The modest lifestyle of our leaders of the days made stealing unnecessary as goods and services were affordable to the average Nigerian. Nobody was homeless, jobless or lacking in wherewithal to procure good education, health care services and other developmental needs.

When the war came, it brought with it greed and avarice. People who had the benefits of the spoils of war, both military and their civilian allies no longer satisfied with modest lifestyles. They came up with socio-political policies and systems that guaranteed their newfound opulent tastes. They no longer care about the need of those without the opportunity to be in government to control sources of national income. They became heady, selfish and bestial. And on the advent of oil boom of the early seventies, and money making became a lot easier, our leaders became reckless in spending. They then declared that money was not our problem but how to spend it. That was the beginning of Nigeria's journey to perdition.

Expectations Distorted

Those born in the early periods of Nigeria's independence thought the merry would last forever, and even got improved in expanse and reach but they soon grew to realize that they were wrong. Our leaders soon began to plan to fail because they failed to plan. Free education declared in some part of the country soon ceased because plans were not made for continuity of the programme. The deluge of eligible learners that showed up for subsequent enrolment confounded the leaders and had to urgently license private operators including missionaries to take over. In parts where it succeeded, curriculum content was watered down to suit the purpose of available teachers who were barely better than their students in many lesson elements. That was the beginning of downfall of public education. At a later times, when political expediency would not allow some leaders in some parts to scrap free education policy of their progenitors and there were no enough educational structures to cope with the influx of learners from other fee-paying states they have to resort to shifting system where a schooling day was divided to morning, afternoon and evening. This soon became problematic and had to stop. Make-shift classrooms had to be constructed in a fashion that resembled poultry sheds which became unattractive to students thus increased the rate of truancy and school dropout.

The effect of this is the high rate of street children who grow to become unemployable youths that turn to the army of area boys that flood streets in urban centres constituting menace to innocent members of the public. Since most of these unfortunate youths are from poor family background they often missed the opportunity to have worthwhile education and they cannot secure capital either from their parents, government or financial institutions to start a trade or business. Notwithstanding their situation, their needs and wants grow with their age. When social pressure becomes intolerable they turn themselves to ready hands for evil assignments such as political thugs, assassins, armed robbers etc. Of course there are some who may not turn to street criminals but go into evil trades of manufacturing fake, adulterated and fatal products for the use of their compatriots. Those who break out of poverty line would not want to become poor again, they buy their ways into political office and retain it by hook or crook. That is why many of our politicians have no other means of survival than politics.

I
t is the dawn of this reality that make some politicians discountenance the roles of electorates in elections. To them neither votes nor people's opinions do not matter, they are sure to force their way to political positions they desire, even if the whole world says no. What take place as general elections are and continue as orchestrated selection of cronies of the then outgoing military or civilian cabals through monumental electoral manipulation to suit the wishes of the wealthy and the wicked. Although a couple of the electoral atrocities were reversed through courageous judicial pronouncements, perpetrators are not deterred. Some of them become even more brazen in the art of bare-faced mandate robbery. Cases of Ido-Osi, Ekiti state electoral abracadabra where Resident Electoral Commissioner was publicly intimidated to work against her conscience; and Osun state where victims of the robbery are being threatened and blackmailed with criminal frame-up in phony bomb throwing, are examples that will not go in a hurry. Even when the President courageously admitted openly that the election that brought him to power was flawed and set up a Panel to reform the country's electoral process, his minders would not want the report of the panel to see the light of the day in its originality because it does not favour the machinery of their electoral manipulation.

Because the election that produced the new leaders did not count on the ballots cast but process manipulation, the resultant government does not recognize the powers of the people to control them. To compensate security agencies for allowing themselves to be used against the will of the people, police and military bosses were allowed to convert emolument of their junior ones to personal use. Victims of this injustice who protested the atrocity were either dismissed from the service or sentenced to life imprisonments after a kangaroo orderly-room trial to justify the miscarriage of justice meted out on the unfortunate junior security personnel. This however instigated the serving junior security personnel against the people they are meant to protect. They rob, rape and or open fire on them with the slightest provocation.

Where we got it wrong

Nigerians got it wrong when they allow themselves to be enslaved by moral suasion. They allow brigands to seize the rein of governance from their true representatives. They became too scared to fight for their rights and brigands cashed on that moral crisis to steal their mandate thus their sustenance for the keeps. Granted that Babangida's regime was an accident occasioned by Sehu Shagari's profligate civilian anomie, Nigerians had no business allowing Abacha to rule having gotten judgment that Shonekan's government was illegitimate. The mass action that forced Babangida to step aside for ever would have been intensified to make ruling unattractive to soldiers anymore. We would have achieved our desired goal of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) which would have been the beginning of our true nationhood in Nigeria. The truncation of the drive towards SNC by the negligence that allowed Abacha to consolidate his hold on power was the reverse gear against the struggle for true democracy.

Pro-democracy activists were betrayed by their opportunistic colleagues who became too hungry to wait for their own time before they began to eat lazed baits that crumbled our revolutionary edifice. None of them had truly survived the treachery, at least in the heart of their own people and by the judgment of history. Those who got to positions of power through fraudulent means would never make any law that will bring them and their cronies to book. They thus make laws that entrench corrupt practices and make culprits go without punishments. The principle of Separation of Powers which engenders checks and balances in a presidential democracy has been thrown overboard in Nigeria. Legislators take bribes to pass Appropriation Bills, accepts gratifications and share stolen unspent budget from the executive arms over which they are expected to perform oversight functions. They even smuggle budget items into Appropriation Bills to satisfy their gluttonous appetite for riches.

The Backward speed

Our thought that the confidence the judiciary exhibited by the court decisions that threw Shonekan out of power would be replicated was a pipe dream after all. The expectation that the Judiciary would serve as the last bastion of hope for the common man has also been dashed as that sacred arm of government has compromised its sanctity. They, for whatever reasons, sometimes allow themselves to be used against the will and interest of the people. It happened in the Justice Thomas Naron-led first Electoral Petition Tribunal in Osun State and the case of Rivers State where the ex-governor suspected to have helped himself to the public till was given perpetual injunction against arrest and investigation by any security agency.

Because of the pervasive injustice in Nigeria, people were treated with less dignity than slaves, Odi and Zakibiam people and their properties were razed, with military might; OPC, Bakassi Boys and other self-determination activists were mowed down while many political opposition figures were assassinated by suspicious elements and in suspicious circumstances that has to do with the new cult of neo-military ruling elites. Up till now this bare-faced crime is getting worse while internecine engineered by political considerations become the order of the day. Up till the time of writing this piece, genocide is being carried by the Nigerian military out in the Niger-Delta region against militant youths who are fighting to protect their patrimony. As a ploy to placate angry bereaved family and compatriots after each unwarranted attack government is usually quick at setting up panel of enquiry to investigate the pogroms and selective murders. All of such panels usually turn out to be phony as none of their enquiries has ever brought any succour to anyone or anyone to book till date as if the murderers were ghosts.

All essential sectors in crises

Before the coming of petroleum products Nigeria survive better. We had thought the party would continue to get better with increased income from oil sources. It turned out to be another failed hope as the petro-dollar is concentrated in the hands of only a few while the condition of living of the vast majority of the people continue to plummet by the day. Before the present civilian dispensation, Nigeria has four refineries that were producing at almost 50 percent capacity on average in the days of military. This has dwindled to nothing, meaning zero per cent within the past ten years thus raising prices of petroleum products to more than 900%. Nigerians were at the mercy of the exploiters of its natural oil and gas for the volume of their exploitation in products and cash. We have to import finished products and their by products at exorbitant costs to feed our factories. Meanwhile most industries and factories that depended on petroleum and its by products could not survive the input starvation had to out rightly close down their production lines and either resorted to importing goods they used to produce or moved out of the country altogether.

Powering the Darkness

Before the advent of the present republic the power generated by then National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), re-branded Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), came close to 4000MW. The Obasanjo's regime promised to up it to about 10,000MW. This was not to be, despite the whooping sixteen billion dollars expended on supplementary National Integrated Power Project between 2004 and 2007. Contracts were fraudulently awarded full contract sums were paid upfront to fraudulent firms with illegal, fictitious and questionable qualifications and standing. What the regime had to show for it is power degeneracy to less than 3000MW. All of the workplaces and homes had to contend with high cost of fuel to run power generators or inconveniences of power cut. This has turned many able-bodied young men and women to criminal of varying descriptions who are over filling various prisons or making living scary, and dying cheaper in Nigeria.

Educational Paralysis

It is a shame that all levels of education is experiencing one form of crisis or the other. University teachers have been on strike for more than four months while our president was fraternizing with countries that pay much more premium on their own educational system. The teachers are fighting for improved condition of tutelage so that our graduates could be useful to themselves. The response from our Education minister was a multi-million naira wedding anniversary party. While himself, our president and vice president who, as former academics themselves were exposed to the sorry state of instructional materials, teaching and research equipment in the universities but met the agitation with utter disdain. Maybe things would have been better if we had good educational system. Curriculum implementation in all institutions of formal learning had never been so degenerate in the history of Nigeria. Public education system had been killed to pave way for private ones to profiteer.

Opportunistic investors in the education sector moved from Nursery, Primary and Secondary Schools into establishing tertiary institutions. Government actors see investing in Universities as a veritable means to launder ill-gotten wealth from government coffers into the system without concern for the quality of minds they churn out. All levels of public institutions are in various state of disrepair: No libraries, no laboratories, no workshops, no equipment, no materials, and no motivated personnel. Their highly expensive private counter parts are only embellished with state-of-art facilities and other wherewithal but lacking in-depth quality curricular implementation. Others are substandard in forms and function; with inadequacies in everything that could qualify any contraption as a school. Their products are like mechanically driven technicians lacking in versatility; with little or no intuitive, imaginative and creative minds. They therefore become robotically-gullible, hypnotically dogmatic and pathologically stupid. This is why they bank only on inherited or fraudulently secured platform to operate such as family business, stolen public institutions or politics.

Most products of decrepit public institutions find it impossible to compete favourably with those who had sound educational background from well-equipped and facilitated institutions. The certificates they wield worth less than the paper that bear them. Bearers of such certificates are referred to as educated illiterates. They are unemployable and the socio-political and economic environment does not favour their taking solace in creating jobs for themselves. They form the army of idle-handed and therefore turn themselves over, either as cheap labour to slave drivers who use them as machines or unscrupulous politicians as devil's workshop used as thugs, assassins or terrorists. This state of affairs has also escalated within the past ten years. It has also dipped security of lives and properties deeper in most urban centres and highways.


Health of Death

Quality health care delivery most often exists only on papers. The available inadequate hospitals create more deaths than health. Life-caring machine that lack adequate, proper and competent handling churn out foul results. This elicits wrong treatment and ultimately leads to compounded ailment which eventual results in untimely death. Useless machines and expired drugs are imported by incompetent business concerns and badly motivated medical personnel administer them without necessary checks and precautions. A case in view is that of a daughter of the former president who disguised with her grandmother's name to collude with an Austrian firm to rape Nigerian's health care system to the tune of about N27billion in useless contracts. Quality innocent lives are in the wake lost in droves to preventable diseases like ignorance, stupidity and poverty.

Transportation to Eternity

Transportation of all types at all levels and varieties pose grave danger to lives and properties in Nigeria. Disrepair transportation facilities such as roads, airports and water ways have become dilapidated and pose death trap to users. More human lives were wasted within the last ten years in avoidable, road and sea accidents than it happened in all the military regimes put together. Most of funds voted for the fixing of equipments and facilities that could have prevented such disasters ended up in private pockets. 
 
Corruption Pandemic

This brings us to the issue of corruption that has become pandemic in Nigeria. At the advent of the present republic Nigerians were given the hope that the rate at which corruption were perpetrated in public and private national lives would be drastically reduced. The hope was further raised with the establishment of ICPC in 2000 and EFCC in 2004. The enthusiasm started to wane with the lack lustre performance of ICPC but was rekindled with EFCC that was able to achieve some superlative feats while the feast lasted. But things changed at the twilight of the last tenure of EFCC's progenitor when it began to exhibit traces of selective justice system even when the outfit continued to deal decisive blows on high-callibre offenders.

Many cases of corruption that were in progress in the days of Nuhu Ribadu were either truncated or frustrated. Even when the present Chairman of the Commission gave indications of readiness to work, the AGF planted so many landmines on her way of success. These antics therefore led the adoption of plea bargain justice system that is available only to the high ranking economic rapists. This syndrome gives room to administering only slaps-on-the-wrist as punishment for convicted corruption criminals like former Inspector-General of Police Tafa Balogun, former Governor of Edo State Lucky Igbinedion etc. It also gave relief to suspected former governors like George Akume, Peter Odili, Ayo Fayose, James Ibori, Uzor Kalu, etc. Whose files were emptied before the new helmsman (helmswoman?) resumed at the Idiagbon House headquarters of EFCC. It also emboldens new entrants into the cult of high-flying corruptionists like Chief Kenny Martins of Police Equipment Fund (Foundation) notoriety, managers of National Electricity Regulatory Authority (NERC), Rural Electrification Agencies and their National Assembly collaborators.

International scandals mostly bordering on bribery like those of Halliburton, Wilbross, Siemens, Sagem ID card, Pentascope etc. were either ignored or, frustrated at home and abroad. Corruption in the National Assembly like that of bribe for budget, a la Fabian Osuji, former Minister of Education, unspent budget, oil, power, health etc were governed up under administrative encumbrances.

Attorney-General of the Corrupt

Worst still, the advent of the new Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation Mr. Michael Aondoakoa became the albatross to the activities of anti-corruption institution and agencies. His approach constituted a clog in the wheel of the appreciable progress the EFCC made before his coming. Like the performance of his principal, President Umaru Yar'Adua, his approach to justice is slow, cumbersome, ineffective and therefore unproductive. The AGF who is expected to be the number one public defender by his approach becomes their number one offender. Michael Aondoakaa used everything in his powers to ensure that corruption suspects evade justice. He distorts or hoards information required to prosecute favoured criminals both at home and abroad. He manipulates due process like ensuring he waters down charges proffered against his corrupt cronies before anti-graft agencies file them in court. And the AGF went to Geneva Conference on Human Rights to obliterate the truth about man inhumanity to man that is prevalent in Nigeria.

ConclusionOne is not pretending to doing thorough assessment of the current republic in Nigeria in this piece. It cannot be done except in a book. However it is clear that Nigeria is yet to find its democratic footing, even after 49 years of self rule and the current decade of uninterrupted civilian (not civil) rule. The tragedy is that the succeeding regimes have only succeeded in plundering the viable business of runinig an independent democratic and economically buoyant country. No progress has been made in any sector of our national life but losses. It is also clear that the inability to harmonize our differing “tribes and tongues” as typified by the variances in our socio-cultural and political orientations we can only pretend to that “in brotherhood we stand”. And until we realized that our inability to govern ourselves up to the par we were under colonialism or surpass it stems from the fact that we have not discussed under which conditions, rules and regulations we intend to base our agreement to live together as a country (not even a Nation). Until we discussed at a National Conference, that will be entirely sovereign, we will only continue to make pretences to nationhood. Debo Adeniran dadnig@yahoo.com

Why We Petitioned Appeal Court President – CACOL Chair

Comrade Debo Adeniran is the chairman, Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) and was among the 24-members of the coalition that were arrested within the premises of the state High Court, Osogbo, Osun State while peacefully protesting the alleged compromise of the Justice Thomas Naron-led Election Petitions Tribunal by the police team led by the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. John Moronike and later remanded in Ilesa prison Custody by Magistrate Olapoju Akintayo of an Osogbo magistrate court.
In this interview with the Editor, Kayode Agbaje and Kazeem Mohammed, he spoke extensively on the CACOL members’ arrest, remand and their experience in prison custody.
Excerpt:-
OSDF: What informed your decision to form CACOL?
Adeniran:- CACOL is a coalition of organizations of which my primary organization is one. My primary organization is Child Help, which is in defence to the right to education in Nigerian otherwise known as Children Project. It was at one of the fora of the organization that we analyzed the situation in the different sectors of the economy and we discovered that all the problems can be traced to corruption at one level or the other.
We discovered that corrupt practices at the lower level based on the corruption at the upper level of government or organization, where you find heads of parastatals, institutions, ministries perpetrating high level of corrupt activities by embezzling funds that should be used for the ordinary people in the country. Meanwhile, the livelihood of these ordinary person are being jeopardized due to non-availability of infrastructure and some other amenities because they would have to spend so much to get little which means that their regular earnings cannot meet up with their lifestyle.
As a result of this, they turns to another means which is beyond the conventional means of getting money by turning towards criminal ways like bribery, stealing and perpetrating all other vices.
So, when we discovered that this corruption affects virtually all aspects of life and economy, we resolved to find a way to tackle the monster once and for all by at least reduce it, if we cannot destroy it completely. During our analysis we discovered that Children Projects which I primarily belong to could not do it alone and we had to invite other organizations and at our meeting we agreed to pursue a minimum agenda on corruption.
Also we said that we are going to tackle corrupt leaders in public and private sectors, that if we could tackle corruption at the higher level, to tackle the ones at the lower levels would not be difficult.
That was what actually informed us to found CACOL and we started CACOL in August 2007.
OSDF: What are the laid down objectives of the coalition?
Adeniran: The main objectives is to garner enough strength both human and materials to engage the state actors in providing wherewithal with which corrupt practice in public and private sectors will be brought under perpetual check. We design programmes that will pamper the anti-graft agencies to do their works accurately that nobody would be treated as sacred cow, be it the head of any public or private institutions. As such, we tried to pressure the anti-graft agencies to do their work without fear or favour.
Also, we help the anti-graft agencies to engage in research with which we can provide them with facts and figures on situation of corruption for them to have materials to work with. We also intend to discourage corrupt practices by exposing ‘corruptionist’ and make sure that their community do not welcome them by deceit. We persuade the communities to warn their sons and daughters that if they engage in corrupt practice, they will find a way of shunning them. So, our motor in CACOL is ‘Name, nail, shame and shun corrupt leaders’ anywhere, everywhere and that is one of our activities that we should identify them, petition against them and make sure that the petition is followed up to a logical conclusion; that they are investigated by officials of anti-corruption agencies and make sure that they are prosecuted.
If eventually they are prosecuted we want to ensure that they are not welcomed back by their communities so that people would be discouraged to engage in corruption.
OSDF: Looking at your objectives, how have you been able to succeed in bringing these corrupt leaders into justice?
Adeniran: If you go back to the history of Olusegun Obasanjo-led government, many people thought that anti-corruption agencies would not do anything that will halt them and you will realize that the need to prosecute Obasanjo started around the time we started CACOL. We took the bull by the horn by writing to the EFCC. We did a procession to the Lagos zonal office of the EFCC-where we submitted the petition in November 12, 2007. Then, we compiled another one and was submitted in December 14, 2007 to ICPC and since then we have been doing follow up.
The EFCC has invited us several times to give them more information and to help them into the investigation of the petitions submitted to them. We have also met ICPC a couple of time. Though they have not shown us that they are doing something, but their pronouncements in the media show us that they are investigating the matter. Also, the Director of Investigation, Umar Sauda declared in Lagos that Obasanjo was under their investigation which was the first time they make categorical statement on the issue.
Also, we went to the National Assembly to submit the same petition and follow-up letters that we have written. We also met the chairman, Anti-corruption Committee, Alhaji Naduku who represented the Speaker of the House of Representatives and we are expecting result from the Assembly of which we will know where to base our agitation. But beyond that, a number of organizations have been gingered up to pick up activities that are directed towards anti-graft activities.
All these activities might have led to what the National Assembly is working on, when they set up a probe panel even at the senate when they have to investigate the allocation of properties at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and some other scandals that have been exposed. Although, we don’t have the illusion that the present administration will probe the past because with all sincerity, the election that brought a lot of them, including the president to power was full of irregularities.
That was the basis of forming the electoral reform committee by President Umar Musa Yar’adua which we believe is not likely to reform anything. Also, the so-called 7-point agenda of Yar’adua has been sabotaged even before it began. In the whole agenda, there is nothing that is working. Basically we don’t have so much hope but we want to put so many things on record that these petitions are against those people, while it will be on record and the atrocities they have committed will be in the history book of this country.
We also support the probe panels that were set up by the National Assembly, even if they were not going to do anything. They said they don’t have prosecutorial power in the Assembly but we told them that they can invite anybody in this country and that they have not invited Obasanjo to defend himself from the power probe sittings and that is a big minus to whatever that might have come up from that power probe thing.
So, if they don’t invite him, they have not done up to 50% of what we expects them to do. But for those ones they have been exposed so far, we believe that government does not do anything about it and we challenge the government to do something about that particular issue.
A lot of other petitions have also been written like that of the way police commissioner in Osun State behaved to us when we staged a procession to the State High Court. So, as for achievement, apart from the fact that we have brought some of these issues to the front burner in the media or elsewhere, we may not be able to say that we have reached a conclusion, but we are not daunted yet and we are still on the move. We have been moving round to do the protest against those corrupt leaders. We were in Jos, in Benin where people are working parri-passu with CACOL agenda.
OSDF: How have you been able to finance your activities in CACOL?
Adeniran: I must tell you that we don’t need much money to do all those things, but the little we have, come from over 30 organizations that come together and in every meeting, all the organizations fund their way to the meeting and to our activities. We have people on the ground anywhere we go in Nigeria, where we stage our activities. We have not engaged in any expensive activities than to write letter and take it to where it should go. Meanwhile some of our members are ready to contribute their skill and finances to ensure that we are succeeded in our programmes. For instance, for now, we are using ‘Children Project’ secretariat for CACOL and some of our members even contributed to some of the publications that we have gotten.
OSDF: What brought about your interest on Osun State?
Adeniran: What actually attracts our interest on Osun State was when we read in the newspaper that the legislators were given N5 million in the state and eleven of them returned the said money. When we read it, we see it as part of corruption because legislators are supposed to checkmate the executive arm of government. For the legislators to now begin to execute projects, it means that their functions have been overlapped. If their functions are now being overlapped, definitely checks and balances would be in jeopardy. It means that the people of the state would now be on their own and the state would be turned to a banana republic, whereby, only might would be right.
So, we addressed press conference and said the fact that legislators have no right to execute any constituency project. If they see that there is need for any development in their constituencies, they can inform the executive arm to include it into the budget estimate and make sure that the projects are executed in their constituencies. So, that was what brought us to Osun State and that was where we discovered the judicial corruption as reported in TheNEWS magazine.
That was where we discovered that one of the lawyers, Kunle Kalejaiye (SAN) had secret access to the judges of the first election petitions tribunal led by Justice Thomas Naron’s concerning the secret phone conversations between them. When we saw that, we discovered that it was an aberration, unethical and it was against the rules that govern the profession. We have professionals among us who did the analysis of the alleged call logs and we crosschecked with the evidence in the magazine. We even liaised with the publisher of the magazine and they showed us more evidence than what they actually published.
On that we now put petition together to the president, Court of Appeal who actually set up the election tribunal. Though, we don’t have enough funds to take the petition to Abuja to go and present it, but we sent it through the Federal Court of Appeal in Ibadan. That is another area where we have dabbled into Osun State.
So, it was at the level of presenting the copy of the same petition to the Chief Judge of the Osun State that we ran into the malady that pervades the governance in Osun State where a peaceful procession was turned to opportunity to brutalize ordinary citizens of the state. We have submitted the petition to the Chief Registrar and we were about signing the acknowledgement copy when we saw the policemen in about five vehicles with two cars following them, where we discovered that the policemen were led by commissioner of police in the state.
Even the first set of police that came saw no reason to arrest us because of our peaceful conduct. Because they did not see us engaging in any violence, they even led us to the office of the registrar of the high court of Osogbo, where we submitted the petition until the CP and his team came. The Chief Registrar even told the CP that everything was under control and he should leave us alone, but the CP even threatened to harass her, which made her to leave us to our fate and kept quiet.
So, they arrested us and two-gatemen of the High Court for allowing us to go into the premises of the court. Meanwhile, the gatemen knew that we were harmless before they allowed us in and even on that day, two courts were sitting and they did not complain that we were disturbing their proceedings on that day, neither were we charged for any offence.
We were taken to the police headquarters from where we were also taken to the state CID where we were psychologically brutalized and they (police) even threatened to make any one of us loose part of his body. Twenty six of us were cramped into ten by six room and even the two policemen that were assigned to the court were also arrested.
Five days later, we were arraigned at the magistrate court 2 and our lawyer argued our bail applications, where a couple of authorities that were cited by our lawyers were opposed by the police prosecutor, Adekunle Ayuba, after which the magistrate said that he would have to go through all the authorities cited. With that, he said that he would rule on the bail application ten days after and we should be remanded in Ilesa prisons after which we were granted bail and we are still on bail now.
OSDF: What were your experiences in prison custody?
Adeniran: When you talk of personnel, it was better but talking of facilities and social amenities, they are in short supply. Ilesa prison does not witness prison congestion as we have been experiencing in Nigeria. The fact is that the warders and even the prisoners are well behaved, but the conditions of living in that place are nothing to write home about. As a result of that, we met the head of prison and complained about all the shortage that we discovered. Also, there are some cells that are called single cell, they are nothing but a torture cage and whatever the case, we don’t believe that prison should be a torture centre, but should be a correctional centre. It should be a place, where prisoners could see at least a minimum comfort and they should have access to recreation and some other things.
Talking about logistics, we discovered that there were no enough vehicles and the ones that are available are not being regularly maintained and even in some occasions the prison officers misses the court proceedings, where they are supposed to present the accused persons. As a result of that, several people spend a long time in prison awaiting trial.
I was surprise, when the Minister for Justice and Attorney–General said that nobody was detained for more than one year without trial, because we discovered that so many people have spent over 8-years in the prison without being tried. Whereas, if they eventually get convicted, they would not have spent one-tenth of what they have spent.
You will also discover that the governor and even the Chief Judge are not visiting the prison to see what happens there and even if they pass through the place, they don’t seek the opinion of the prisoners to know what they are short of. Due to the long time they have spent, some of them have been tortured that they could not even recognize their sanity. Some of them have contracted diseases, while some of them have developed pneumonia, because of the bad living condition. We believe that there would be improvement if the head of the prison improve on the care of the prisoner as promised.
OSDF: What is your message to our leaders and even the followers?
Adeniran: The message is that our leaders should shun corruption because whatever they do will surely be on record.
To the people, the corrupt leaders should not be welcomed to their communities, so that they would be discouraged from such act, they should shame and shun the corrupt leaders after they might have been identified.

We Are Tired Of You’ •Rights Groups, Opposition Parties, Citizens Condemn Osun CP For Compromise

We Are Tired Of You’

•Rights Groups, Opposition Parties, Citizens Condemn Osun CP For Compromise

Osun State Commissioner of Police, Mr. John Moronike appears to have exhausted his goodwill on the altar of compromise, just as human rights groups, opposition political parties and senior citizens have unanimously passed a vote of no confidence on the state super cop.
Findings have shown that the good goodwill earlier enjoyed by the CP, after a disastrous departure of his predecessor, Mr. Suleimon Fakai; got deflated when the stakeholders at the opposite of the divides, started perceiving him as a compromised police officer.
It would be recalled that Fakai came to the state after Alhaji Audu Abubakar’s redeployment to another state, and he was driving his men well, until he was allegedly bought over that compensated an untoward role he reportedly played in the last year’s controversial general elections in the state.
Investigations conducted by OSUN DEFENDER revealed that Fakai’s earlier determination to give Osun State Police Command an independent role of protecting the lives and properties of the citizens, irrespective of their political affiliation, crumbled when the state establishment which was hell bent at dictating the tune showered him unsolicited Greek gifts.
Despite his shortcomings and naked compromise, Fakai still allowed a good sense of judgment to prevail in some of his dealings and one of them was the way he handled the explosion that rocked the state secretariat last year 14 June.
The ex-Osun commissioner of police was among the first security officers that spirited to the scene, where a victim was torn into shreds.
Fakai, in company of the state deputy governor, Erelu Olusola Obada promised that the police would not allow the raging political upheaval in the state to affect investigation by the ballistic department.
Few weeks after a war of words between the warring Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Action Congress (AC) in the state over the controversial explosion saga, the interim report of the ballistic department of the command reportedly allayed fear of an organized crime, as it attributed the explosion to an accident of rock-blasting explosives device.
Several posers were raised on the intention of the victims and suspected perpetrators, as people demanded to know why a man would decide to bomb himself with an explosive device loaded in a car with a registration number.
However, when Moronike took over the mantle of leadership of the state police command, he slowed down the oppressive state machine on ground which had hauled a number of AC leaders into prisons, premising his action on the need to follow the rule of law.
Recently, the rule of law matter of the leading cop has turned sour in the ears of the right groups and opposition political parties that feel the insincerity in the policing gospel of Moronike, as they have a bone to pick with him.
The leadership of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) alleged the embattled CP of flirting with the state establishment with the aim of suppressing the dissenting voice in the state. Hear the national coordinator of the coalition, Comrade Debo Adeniran: “I heard Mr. Moronike telling the press men inside the premises of the state high court, Osogbo, when he personally led a team of armed policemen to arrest us during our peaceful rally, and saying that the press men were the ones writing rubbish about the governor. The import is that the man has sold out to the establishment.
CACOL charged the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro to redeploy the state police boss, disclosing that the petitions on the atrocities and compromise of police institution under are numerous and powerful to be ignored.
Besides, Lagos State chapter of AC has called on the super cop in Abuja to call Moronike to order before he helps reduce the state to rublles. AC in Lagos noted that the recent clampdown on the party leaders, which was effected by Moronike’s men, was a pointer to a wicked compromise.
In a statement signed by the Lagos State chairman of the party, Chief Dele Ajomale, the Osun Police boss has declared his partisan stand and he should be allowed to drop his uniform in order to join partisan politics.
In the same vein, Osun State chapter of Alliance of Collaborating Political Parties (ACPP) has also called for the head of the embattled police commissioner, maintaining that he has demonstrated enough double-face in his actions and reactions.
According to a statement signed by the duo of Messrs Waheed Lawal and Rufus Oyatoro of National Conscience Party (NCP) and Labour Party (LP) respectively and made available to OSUN DEFENDER on Tuesday, the CP should start preparing his bag for his days in Osun State are numbered.
“We shall write to the IG about his compromise and the untold brutality of his men against the harmless politicians, and as stakeholders; we shall urge Mr. Mike Okiro to save us from his (Moronike’s) suspicious role lately.
Meanwhile, some opinion leaders, who spoke to OSUN DEFENDER under strict condition of anonymity, for security reason, expressed their disappointment in the embattled police boss. They however, expressed their reservations over his relationship with the PDP.
Some of them agreed that his imminent career somersault in the state could not be divorced from inducement and irresistible overtures from the state, declaring that his endorsement as touching the creation of ‘Eagle’ Squad for the whims and caprices of the establishment was a clear case of a sell-out.
It would be recalled that some armed men, suspected to be policemen stormed the residence of a former commissioner for health, Alhaji Layi Oyeduntan, where they violently killed his Alsatian dog on night guard before taking him away.
The same gang waylaid the state AC Director of Research and Strategies, Mr. Sunday Akere along Osogbo West-By-Pass and whsked him to the Eagle Squad in Osogbo.
Reacting, the state chairman of the Joint Action Forum (JAF), Comrade Aderemi Ayanlade condemned the uncivilized way of getting the people behind the bar with the unalloyed support of the police, stating that his group had long passed a vote of no confidence on the CP.
“We have heard about Mr. Moronike’s habit and how he enjoys the company of the PDP members. It may be true or not, but such a man does not stand for a principle, and he is not fit to lead an institution like police force” Ayanlade.

Oyinlola Lacks Honour – Rights Activists

Embattled Osun State Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola has drawn the irk of civil societies over his infantile curses both in Ekiti State and on the church altar, against himself and the opposition members, as touching his secret meeting with Ekiti State local government council chairmen, where he reportedly pledged to supply fake army uniforms, arms and ammunitions to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) thugs to prosecute the controversial rerun governorship election in the state (Ekiti).
The coalition of the civil societies unanimously described the embattled state helmsman as a man without honour, saying that his attitude on the campaign podium during Igede-Ekiti PDP rally, has exposed him (Oyinlola) as a drunken sailor, who should not steer the ship of a state like Osun.
In an interview with the leadership of United Action for Democracy (UAD), Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL), Peoples Welfare League and Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), Comrades Abiodun Aremu, Debo Adeniran, Segun Sango and Abiodun Agboola respectively, Oyinlola was taken to the cleaners for reducing governance to infantile jobs, against the spirit of providing dividends of democracy in the state.
It would be recalled that the embattled governor was caught red-handed on a tape, while promising the Ekiti council bosses to supply fake military fatigues, arms, ammunition and thugs, that would unleash terror on the supporters of Action Congress (AC) in the state, when he (Oyinlola) further charged the chairmen to make money available to the thugs during the rerun governorship poll in Ekiti State.
Findings revealed that the obviously rattled Oyinlola lost his cool during his second appearance at a rally in Ekiti State, where he was billed to drum support for the ousted governor, Mr. Segun Oni; when he started cursing himself and the AC chairman in the state, Chief Olajide Awe on the allegation.
Oyinlola was quoted to have invited the wrath of all the curses in the Bible on the guilty one, between himself and Awe; simultaneously praying the god of thunder, to unleash his terror on himself, if he ever presided over a meeting with the council bosses on the said allegation.
One of our reporters, who attended a gospel church situated along Ring road, Osogbo, Osun State capital, penultimate Sunday witnessed how the rattled Okuku-born politician repeated the curses while on the church altar, with a view to proving his innocence.
However, like a drunkard, facing the reality on the following morning, the troubled Osun State chief executive went on air last week Saturday, during his monthly self-praising programme on the state-owned broadcasting stations, called OPEN FORUM, and started expressing his regret over the outburst.
In his reaction, the National Convener of the UAD, stated that Oyinlola has demonstrated enough traits that showed him as a man without honour, whose stock-in-trade were lies, frame-up, deception and violence, saying that he (Oyinlola) should not be taken seriously.
“I think the governor is a sleep-walker who should not be taken seriously for anything, because lies, frame-up of opponents, deception and violence are his stocks-in-trade. His infantile curses in Ekiti State, which was beamed live on the national television, has shown him as a mere drunk”, Aremu submitted.
Speaking on the development, the National Coordinator of CACOL, spanked Oyinlola for settling an obvious issue with supernatural solution, only to regret it later, noting that Oyinlola is a hypocrite of the highest order.
“Governor Oyinlola is a hypocrite, who sings during the winter, only to change tune during the summer. I watched him cursing himself in Ekiti State, and I sympathize with my people in Osun State, for having a little mind as a governor. Now that he has started regretting it, it speaks volume of a man without honour,” Adeniran asserted.
A Chieftain of DSM, Comrade Segun Sango came hard on the governor, describing him as anti-democratic opportunist, who should bury his head in shame for raising his voice in democracy, when he laboured hard to kill the same concept, which was fought for by scores of human rights activists.
Sango said Oyinlola’s overzealousness on Ekiti State rerun governorship election was more than party loyalty, asking him to open up on the under-hand deals he had with the ousted Ekiti governor.
“As a matter of fact, Oyinlola is an anti-democratic opportunist, who is shameless by raising his head in democracy, when it was obvious that he was amongst the military men that wanted to kill democracy. So, let him continue cursing himself,” Sango raged.
In his reaction, National Coordinator, People Welfare League (PWL), expressed his sympathy for the governor on his infantile attitude, saying that if an adult is found in a game meant for the child, he deserves pity.
“Governor Oyinlola is a paragon of shame, for throwing curses around on issues he could have settled with facts behind the figure. He has won my sympathy and I honestly pity him,” Agboola said.
By Goke Butika

Debo Adeniran at 50: The struggle continues

Debo Adeniran at 50: The struggle continues

• By OLUCHI EKEKWE
• Published 21/05/2010
• Society
• Rating: Unrated

Unlike every other man who would want to display wealth at any birthday party, especially at 50 years, Debo Adeniran’s golden age celebration took a different shape. It was more of an interactive session with a lecture entitled "Civil Society and the Challenges of Anti-Corruption Struggle in Nigeria, Debo at 50, an Exemplar of Creative Doggedness," delivered by Mr Femi Falana, who was the guest speaker at the event.

Debo Adeniran, who hails from Osun State, is an educationist and the founder/chairman of Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL), an organisation whose objective is to fight corrupt leaders. He is married with children.

According to Falana, Adeniran was being celebrated because of his doggedness in taking part in so many rallies and protests where many people were killed.

To Falana, celebrating him was not only for surviving series of persecutions he suffered as an activist, but for his leadership roles in different civil society organisations in Nigeria and for clocking 50 in a country where life expectancy has, unfortunately, been reduced to 46.

Falana, while speaking on the challenges of anti-corruption, said although people use part of their stolen wealth to ridicule the system and prove to others how it pays to be corrupt, concerned Nigerians like Adeniran have continued to fight even when their lives are threatened.

"The struggle against corruption cannot be solved if we sit on the fence and allow corrupt people to take over," he said.

He challenged Adeniran to step on dangerous toes and cut them if possible, in order that Nigeria can have peace.

Falana spoke further on how corruption could be curbed in the country. According to him, contractors handling any project must be carefully monitored by the people in-charge to ensure faithful execution of such should projects.

He also suggested that anyone who misappropriates money meant for a particular project be brought to book.

He said until politicians see the need of to provide the citizenry with basic amenities such as good hospitals, roads and energy, they will continue to die in foreign lands as they and their relatives had been doing.

The celebrator, who was full of smiles acknowledged his wife, Bola, as the reason behind his success; saying, one faces problems if one does not have the support from the home-front.

"I am energised by all the speeches, the struggle has just begun and I will continue to fight for Nigerians, even if it will take my life," he said.

The Secretary for Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL), Comrade Adesina Adebayo, described the celebrator as a dogged fighter who is passionate about justice.

"You can’t bribe him. He is very humane and the inner part of him comes out when he is at work," he said.

The occasion was graced by the Action Congress governorship candidate in Osun State for 2007 elections, Rauf Aregbesola; Founder, Odua Peoples Congress, Dr Fredrick Fasehun; the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman who was represented by the chief image maker of the Commission, Mr Femi Babafemi; Chairman, Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area, Lagos State Hon Ayodele Adewale; Mr Femi Falana and members of different civil society groups in Nigeria.

God created man to live happily forever

God created man to live happily forever. But Man created His own God, made His own World, invented His own Trouble...He is the architect of his own survival or destruction. Life would be a better place without religions and worships... and warships.