Says the Nigerian citizen is essentially a Biafran
By Nnamdi Ojiego
Dele Farotimi, a civil rights activist and legal practitioner, caused a stir in the polity after being picked up by the police and detained for alleged criminal defamation against a prominent Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Afe Babalola. The issues were later resolved. In this monitored interview, Farotimi reflects on the fifth anniversary of the #EndSARS protests and the detention/trial of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, which provoked a protest in Abuja on Monday, saying both issues expose the deep contradictions within Nigeria’s justice system. According to him, the pattern of state violence, selective justice, and suppression of dissent reveals a nation drifting further from democracy and accountability. Excerpts:
How do you interpret the events of October 20 – the #EndSARS anniversary and the #FreeNnamdiKanu protests – particularly the response of security agencies and what it reveals about the state of the nation?
Well, I think the first thing is that we need to learn to pay attention to what the Nigerian state does more than the things that it says. Number one, five years ago, unknown number of Nigerians were murdered by men purportedly members of their own armed forces. It is a sad commentary on the country we have built up till today. We can’t even agree on the facts because the truth is in the face, but men are still arguing against the grain of the truth. Second thing is that when you pay attention, you see very quickly that after 26 years of our democracy, the Nigerian victim, who we euphemistically refer to as citizen, does not even have the right to express their pains. I’m not even talking about their rights, but their pains. Yemi Adamolekun was assaulted at the Lekki Toll Gate exactly five years after the state killed men and women there.
Complicit
Those who were protesting for the freedom of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu were seriously assaulted and tear gassed in full glare of everybody just yesterday. Meanwhile, in this same blessed country of ours, terrorists, euphemistically referred to as bandits, are rioting and trooping in full glare of TV cameras, granting interviews and laying down conditions for peace to a state that is complicit in the mess that has overtaken it. But those who are asking that the person who was abducted from another country, been granted bail by the court, be freed are being arrested and assaulted. Even the politics of which should have informed the rulers of Nigeria that it’s not good for optics, that you have real terrorists who have borne arms, killed multiple numbers of persons, completely unrepentant, who are busy walking around free. But a man who has carried the genuine grievance of his people, you may not like his methods, that’s a different ballgame entirely, but how do you complain about his methods when you are mollycoddling even worse? And you can’t even find the grace or the sense, common sense, to bring peace in the country and find a way to free the man. So I am all for the right of citizens to protest. But unfortunately, the Nigerian is not a citizen. And the Nigerian state advertises it and reinforces that message every day.
Some argue that Nnamdi Kanu’s case is already before the court and should be allowed to run its course. How do you respond to those who insist the judicial process must be fully exhausted?
What were these same people saying when Bello Turji is busy rampaging in the northeast and the northwest and is mollycoddled and met by different levels of traditional rulership and even the so-called constituted authority? Nigeria has created a situation where there seems to be two parallel justice systems. How do you tell somebody to keep exercising patience with a judicial system that appears to be obeyed only when it does what is told by the executive? The optics does not support this argument about the existence of a court process. What happened to the court processes in relation to real bandits and terrorists who have taken Nigerians hostage, killed them even in their worship centers? How do you have this conversation about having one subject itself to a justice system that is manifestly unjust and incapable of delivering justice while telling the other to ignore the fact that there are worse criminals even in terms of crime that are being ignored? It is the double standard that makes this argument difficult to stomach.
Judicial system
There is a judicial system, quote and unquote, but that judicial system is completely blind to the crimes of one and in the other one you find a dissonance that suggests that it’s okay to treat this one like this but it’s fine to treat the other one in that manner. It is the uneven scale that makes this argument inequitable to even present in the first place. If everybody are treated the same then we can have this discussion but in a situation where it is clear, so nauseatingly clear, it is difficult to even have a rational argument where one is saying that, oh, there is a justice system to which Nnamdi Kanu must be subjected but that justice system, it is gagged, it is blindfolded, it is handcuffed in relation to others. That is not a position I’m able to argue and in any case, who says we can’t walk and chew gum at the same time? It is the inalienable right of those who are truly citizens to protest and show their discontent to their rulers. I don’t believe that those who protested have done anything wrong. If anything, I think the Nigerian state is advertising serious double standard that is not sustainable.
What do you think this government is scared of? What do you think are the concerns or worries of this government?
Well, I think it is easy to elicit the truth when you look at the objective realities. October 20, 2020, Nigerians were protesting peacefully, waving flags, singing national anthem. They were murdered in cold blood. That is the response of the Nigerian states to those demanding to be treated as citizens. The entire protest was EndSARS. SARS was the brutal and it remains the brutal arm of the Nigerian government in enforcing impunity in Nigeria. But the state did not address this concern. Instead, it murdered those who were demanding to be treated as citizens. Every time Yele Sowore and his cohorts come out to protest something or the other, you see the Nigerian police in full force, always ready to murder, to kill, to maim every time Nigerians demand to be treated as citizens. But when you look at this way, the same Nigerian state treats bandits, quote and unquote, terrorists, Fulani militia, murdering Nigerians in the full glare of everyone, you see complicit silence by the state. So it’s easy to say what the Nigerian state is scared of. The Nigerian state is scared of being subjected to the rule of law and being accountable to its victims. The only time you see the Nigerian army and police flex muscles is when people are demanding to be treated as citizens. Those who bear arms against the Nigerian state, who murder citizens in their beds, in their homes, on their farms, nothing ever happens to them.
Repentant terrorists
The Nigerian state is constantly talking about repentant terrorists. We have the most successful deradicalization program in the entire wide world. We should be exporting it. But it is in Nigeria that those who presume to demand to be treated decently as human beings, governed and protected by law, are serially assaulted and murdered. Chinedu Agu is there in prison in Owerri today. What was his sin? He criticized the governor. That is the country we have built. Those who need to be afraid of the Nigerian state are those demanding that he should treat them both as citizens and as human beings. But those who go around murdering and killing Nigerians, regardless of their ethnicity or religion, the Nigerian state has no problem with those ones. So the Nigerian state is afraid of having itself yoked to the rule of law and having the citizens, quote and unquote, treated as citizens and no longer as victims. That is what the Nigerian state is afraid of. Accountability in any way, shape or form, it does not like it.
Security agencies in the Southeast blame criminal elements linked to IPOB for many killings, with Simon Ekpa often mentioned in that context. To what extent do you think Nnamdi Kanu bears responsibility for these incidents, and should this form part of the charges against him?
Well, let me remind us of a Yoruba proverb. It says, you say to the crippled, your load is askew and it reminds you that perhaps you should be looking at his feet instead of focusing on his head. Now, Nnamdi Kanu is a reaction to genuine grievances. Ndigbo, since the end of the civil war, has proven to be the testing ground for all the madness that afflicts Nigeria. What was once restricted strictly for the Igbos have now been democratized for everybody. The Nigerian citizen is essentially a Biafran. The question to ask is this: Why is Nnamdi Kanu agitating? And why is he supported by the rank and file of Ndigbo? A lot of people are unhappy with his methodologies. Yes. But there has been nobody who has been able to come out to credibly challenge the genuineness of the grievances that he’s fighting against. Let us be clear. I have been very vocal in condemning his method but nobody in their right mind can argue against the fact that Ndigbo, just like every other Nigerian who is not a member of the ruling class, has been seriously marginalized in Nigeria and is not even treated decently like a human being.
State-sponsored
So if we want to talk about the criminalities that has also affected that struggle, let me remind you that it is in this country that we started hearing how a former militant leader has been contracted in certain states to bear arms on behalf of the Nigerian state. He said as much inside the council chamber of the Nigerian state in Aso Rock at the beginning of Tinubu’s regime when he was there vibrating. We don’t even know and cannot say for sure whether this madness can be traced directly to Nnamdi Kanu and his cohort. I am not his lawyer; I’ll let his lawyer handle that. But the fact is this: there is no way to say with certainty that state-sponsored actors are not equally involved in the madness that has overtaken the southeast. And if you are going to deal with that madness, you would have to go to the root. What is causing the grievances? What is at the root of the grievances? What is it that the Igbo man is complaining about? Why is it that this place has remained in turmoil? If it’s just about Nnamdi Kanu, it would have been over. You’ve had him locked up for like four years and even before then, he was mostly on the run. So the point is, take away the grievances and the agitations will dry up. As long as the edge lines persist, the fingernail will remain bloodstained. That is a reality. Nnamdi Kanu might not be to your taste, but you should ask yourself, and I’m saying this to everybody who might have reason to have quarreled with him, as I have, why is his agitation resonating with his people? Because it is true. So if the Nigerian state is interested in dealing with the criminalities and everything, let it go first to the root of the problem, the inequitable treatment of Nigerians. It is just unfortunate that the Igbo man is the one we are speaking about, but there is nothing that held him today that does not hold each and every Nigerian, regardless of where they are. It is inequity that is at the root of everything.
The police cited a court order to justify their actions yesterday. In light of Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution, which guarantees the right to peaceful protest, how do you interpret that order and its implications for future demonstrations in Nigeria?
Number one, this question should help you to see the lie that is called Nigeria Constitution, that is suggestive of something that the people came together to give to themselves. A band of bandits wrote what you are calling the constitution, and the section you are citing is as useless as the persons who crafted it. And I would explain myself. In a democracy, there should never be a need for a police permit before you may have a protest. That the police was informed so that they would provide security. That a court would presume to curtail the right of citizens to protest peacefully in a democracy is even suggestive of the fact that you are not in a democracy, you are only mimicking and pretending to be in a democracy. It is actually completely unheard of that in a democracy, citizens are required to obtain the permits of their paid employees before they may congregate peacefully.
Unfit for purpose
Our judiciary is unfit for purpose, it does exactly as it is told by the executive, and it does not serve the cause of justice. An order is only as useful as its lawfulness. You can arrest those who are violent in protesting, you can arrest those who break the law, but there should never be a situation where you are saying citizens cannot protest. I have been the victim of a court that tried me, remanded me in prison, on non-existent law. So what kind of law or court order is going to stop citizens who are not out for violence from peacefully showing their displeasure with the government? Why I don’t join protests is because I know that they are merely protesting to the deaf, how do you tell the deaf you don’t like what is being done to you? A person who is intent on not hearing you, why are you wasting your time shouting at him? It’s a waste of time, the Nigerian state is deaf, it does not listen. So those who protest to the Nigerian state, when you talk about protest, it’s suggestive of the person saying no, I’m not happy with what you are doing, and he keeps saying I’m not happy with this, I’m not happy with this. The expectation is that the person to whom you are protesting has the capacity to hear you, and having heard you, he will recalibrate and do the right thing. It has never happened that the Nigerian state recalibrated and did the right thing. After the EndSars protest, they changed the name to SWAT, today it’s RRS. It is the character and nature that has not changed. The Nigerian state does not change anything for anybody, it is not interested in pleasing those who presume themselves to be citizens. It doesn’t care.
In one of your recent posts, you described the violence and displacement in northern and central Nigeria as a ‘long-running genocide’ against Christians and other minorities. In one line, what exactly did you mean by that?
Let me be clear about this. I am not one of those waiting for America or some other country to come and save us. It is up to us to save ourselves. And I don’t need a red-nosed, repackaged American to tell me the truth of what I have been shouting in my country for over eight years. There is a genocide going on in Nigeria. The Nigerian state is complicit in it and the victims are largely Christians and other minorities in the northeast, in the northwest and in the middle belt. I don’t need the Americans to tell me that. And I don’t need the Americans to establish the complicity of the APC and the Buhari junta. It was the Baraje that told all of us, all of us in Nigeria heard him say it in 2016 at his 78th birthday anniversary. The APC imported terrorists into Nigeria. Commander Olawunmi sat in your studio when he informed the whole of Nigerians that as far back as 2016, a list was compiled and given to President Buhari of sponsors of terrorism in his government. And he’s also mentioned at that time that there were state governors who were sponsors of terrorism. All these people are still in Nigeria today. I don’t need the Americans to tell me what I have seen, what I have heard and what eyewitnesses have told me. The complicity of the Nigerian state has been established beyond reasonable doubt. And they should stop lying to themselves and face the fact of what is before us.
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