Alaye re ni yii nisale.
The K-risis in Kwara Court Yesterday.
I'll try to be as brief as possible.
Student and activists of ANSA, some reporters from Lagos and lawyers yesterday attended the court hearing in the case involving SaharaReporters and Saraki.
Lawyers went into the courtroom to argue the case, armed with constitutional references.
Journalists from Lagos went into the premises and were observing while also waiting to possibly get interviews after the court session.
Students and activists who came from various organizations armed with placards to show their solidarity also began to arrive.
Moment the small solidarity crowd gathered and began to raise their placards outside the courtroom, they were immediately pounced on.
The young "solidarity" singing men and women were brutalized and their placards destroyed by sticks wielding assaulters who appeared to have been planted within the court premises and taking orders from certain supervisors that were marking faces in the court premises who must be due for torture.
The assaulters came in their hierarchies; those pointing and giving orders -they are well matured adults, polished dressing effects with glittering layers of skin - the "furnished Alhaji" kind; some middle-aged men wearing T-shirts and speaking diluted "student-comrade" Yoruba-English mixture - the Dino Melaye kind; and the combatants who had no orientation but to take the beating over from their immediate superiors that identified people and continued the beating.
Then was the policemen-in-cahoots. That is where the buck is passed. If you managed to "sare" (run for dear life) while your torture lasted, you're free indeed.
But if you waited back to speak grammar and claim right, the second-in-hierarchy collects you from the combatants and pass you to the police. You are the "scape goat" to be used in their arranged media hooplas.
The bus that brought the comrades from Lagos was descended upon and the window smashed, but the bus swiftly moved, rescuing some students who had just managed to escape from their own respective assaulters.
Funmi Jolade Ajayi who was being "stubborn" and decided not to flee while they tortured her started asking what seemed like a "silly" question; "is it a crime to come to court?".
Well, that question can only be silly in presence of paid agents whose only business is to maim anyone that came to "their territory" in support of Omoyele Sowore against Saraki.
Funmi got the more bloody response; brutal beating, her clothes torn, but one of the middle-hierarchy assaulters prevented the others from tearing her completely naked.
The somewhat Caribbean Alhaja's who stood-by from their Feudal Lord-Saraki prevailed on the assaulters not to completely expose their shared womanhood. They ensured her own share would only be limited to torture but not to be stripped completely unclad.
The combatants murmured but then complied. One of them said the instruction they had from "Oloye" (I can't tell who they particularly referred to as yet) was to "shi gbogbo won kaba-kaba", what I learned from the NANS-brigands to be "maximum shi-shi" or torture to the pulp.
But for Funmi Jolade Ajayi and few others who remained and were observing the film continuing, nearly everyone else of the solidarity-students and activists camp had fled for dear lives.
Few minutes as Funmi remained at the court premises still persisting on her monotonous rant line; "Nigeria Police, you mean you'd just be watching as these miscreants are beating me..; is it a crime to come to court....?", then came some correspondents from Channels TV, AIT and Core TV who may have been tipped-off that some crises were going on at premises of the court. They saw what had been done to Funmi Jolade Ajayi and decided to tape her sole-demonstration.
She granted them interview afterwards, narrating what had happened to her and others, who had now fled due to torture by the assaulters or had been arrested by police, post torture.
Immediately after the interview, the thugs saw the TV crews and weren't comfortable with them capturing their activities within the court premises. They immediately pounced on the crews.
After gifting a generously mild slap on one of the cameramen from his back, and struggled microphone with the female correspondent of Core TV, others immediately "cooperated" as they took stock of the situation.
All these happened with the Police watching while also taking instructions from the hierarchies too.
One of the police officers immediately cautioned them not to beat journalists.
Charitable enough, he said "leave these ones", prevailing on them to be mild at the AIT, Channels and Core TV crews. But then they told him; "We must delete their footage".
The thugs muscled the big camera from the crew, insisting "you can't go with that footage".
They took the crew to one corner, and the operation I later learned was "successful". What I can't immediately confirm, however, is that the crew were "compensated with good money, so that they won't mention or report that such thing happened".
As much as I want to doubt that, the onus is on them to confirm or dismiss it.
How would they do that? They'd either dismiss the "good compensation" by reporting/showing the footage or confirm indeed they had "good compensation" by not reporting or showing the footage they had from the court scene.
The journalists from Lagos could not even dare bring out their own cameras, having seen the fate meted to the ChannelsTV, CoreTV and AIT crews.
Others who had cell phones were beaten up and their phones were snatched. Mhiztee, one of the female comrades from LAUTECH did not only run for dear life, her sandals were removed also after her phones were taken and her bag obtained by the mob. She left without any phone nor sandal on her.
The mob's schemes of assault were well organized so that, if you still mustered courage to be speaking grammar after your own torture and almost causing a scene for public to see, they hand you over to the Police to "go and keep" you.
So was Sanyaolu Juwon's fate as well as few other comrades. After he was identified by some NANS "come-and-raids" who were mobilized to the court by the Pro-Saraki's, he was first seized, beaten and while he was still speaking an intrepid's grammar, he was then handed over to the Police as "scape goat".
Few minutes later, their media machinery began to work. They started using their sponsored online blogs to report that "Thugs sent by Omoyele Sowore to disrupt court were arrested and were being detained at the Police Station".
By when we visited the Police Station to see who the purported thugs were, they turned out to be Juwon, who was abducted from the court premises for merely being identified by paid NANS factional "come-raids" as a solidarity comrade for Sowore; Olowoparija Abiola Blackson, who was only carrying a bag containing camera but could not even bring it out having witnessed the treatment meted to the Channels TV, AIT and Core TV crews -he did nothing but was spotted by the mob as not being one of them; Chinwendu Ohakpougwu who was only having a pen and paper while sitting quietly in the courtroom and taking notes.
Those were the "thugs" they claimed Sowore sent to the court and then were arrested!
To this end, it is appropriate to thank everyone for their roles; those that were paid to keep Kwara State and her people in perpetual servitude while wanton corruption lingers; defenders of the dysfunctional State due their own benefits from the State of corruption; those who told us point blank; "Saraki is our thief, leave him for us and only focus your own thieves in your own States"; those that were hired to label these young men as "thugs"; the blogs that were readily set as the mouthpieces of the Saraki's to blackmail "anything Sowore"; those sharing the craps from the paid online rats of Saraki and painting it with their own sentiments against Omoyele Sowore; ever dubious NANS come-and-raid con artists; paid men of the Nigeria Police Force; the judge and counsels of Saraki and all of you I don't know your roles yet in this.
It is however more important to also thank and give thumbs-up to the resilient and genuine comrades; ranging from those that released Statements condemning the spurious judgment; those giving moral supports; indefatigable lawyers from Femi Falana chambers, Inibehe Effiong and others of conscience who stood up to stand pro-bono with reason; comrades who physically came in solidarity all the way from Lagos, UNIBEN, LAUTECH and those who came with Oseriemen Sankara; Kwarans who are now gaining their consciousness and supporting the right focus; and the rest of you that are trusting, sharing the credible reports (even though they are had truths) as against the paid corrupt contents from the stool of politics; and sympathizers alike.
I witnessed everything I wrote here personally as I stealthily moved around. What I cannot confirm, I stated as "can't immediately confirm".
It is to this end that I like to reiterate the widely and validly applauded maxim of Martin Luther King Jnr; "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends".
Victory is coming!
But history is writing and preparing your respective places as you are acting out the manuscripts today.
Segun O'Law.
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