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Thursday 10 July 2014

I Almost lost my life for Ekiti Election

The hour was drawing to 10.00pm on Friday, June 20, the eve of the governorship election taking place in Ekiti State.

I was sitting at the lobby of Dave Hotel located along the Ado-Ekiti – Ifaki Ekiti Road in the state capital. I was among more than a dozen journalists lodging at the hotel, albeit, in town to cover the watershed election,
which, had, days before, generated a lot of anxiety and apprehension, particularly with regards to lives and property due to the apparent desperation of interests involved and notoriety of the people of the state to recourse to violence if the political tide was seen in the slightest to have been manipulated or run against the common grain.

I was waiting in the lobby to take Charles Adegbite, The Sun resident Correspondent in Ado-Ekiti, who had booked our accommodation and arranged that The Sun reportorial team I was leading was comfortable, back in my car to his house in Oke Yinmi, another part of town, as it was too late for him to find any cab or commercial motorcyclist (Okada), a curfew haven been imposed on the state as part of security measures to ensure a free, fair and credible poll the following day.

Ado-Ekiti was swarming with security agents – soldiers in their military fatigues, mobile and regular policemen, men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and operatives of the Department of State Security (DSS), all armed to the teeth. They were everywhere – on the streets, at the Independent and National Electoral Commission (INEC) State Secretariat, Divisional Police stations, Area Commands and various checkpoints leading into town.

Those at the entry points into the state had in fact begun to enforce the restriction of movements order by 6.00pm, turning back travelers, including those who may even be transiting to other parts of the country at the borders.

Charles and I had, after sending the last of our stories of the day to the Lagos headquarters at the Press Centre, Old Governor’s office, where other colleagues from other media houses converged at 8.00pm, gone on shopping for food and victuals to tide us over for the period of election and the day after as it occurred to us that local eateries would not open, due to the prevailing restriction of movements. As it were, we spent about an hour or two combing the city, as most supermarkets and shops had closed in obedience to the curfew.

However, we managed to get some loaves of bread, tins of sardines, sachet milk and Milo, a bunch of fruits and bags of sachet water, which we took back to share with our other colleagues – Rasak Bamidele (Political Editor); Omoniyi Salaudeen (on the Sunday Sun staff) and Ayodele Ojo, the photographer.

Back in the hotel, we had shared the provision amongst ourselves and I offered to give Charles a lift to his house as the restriction order did not affect people on essential duties pertaining to the election including journalists, so long as you had your identity cards and accreditation tags issued by INEC authorities.

Just then, he pleaded with me to allow him sort out some business with Ojo, the photographer and dashed off to the latter’s room, which was upstairs.

I decided to wait for him and sank into a sofa directly facing the door of the hotel lobby overlooking the entrance and the forecourt. I could not have been in this position, disinterestingly watching a match in the on-going World Cup Football tournament on the television (I am an avowed sports philistine), with a chap who I assumed was also a guest in the hotel and two female and one male hotel receptionists, when I noticed their furtive movements in the outer compound, though the partially opened glass doors. Gunmen in masks!

The darkly figures moved briskly, distributing themselves and cordoning off the hotel, as the one that appeared to be their leader issued orders, barely above whispers.

Robbers! My heart skipped a beat. They apparently came to attack the guests, whom they knew must have come into town with loads of cash and riches, I surmised.

As they approached the lobby, I sprang up to my feet and made for the door which adjoined the bar to escape. My hand was just on the knob when their leader came in and barked: “Don’t move! If you move…” I froze and gently turned back to face a tall, masked figure wearing a blue vest on a striped shirt and jeans trousers with a pistol holstered around his waist. Flanking him were two others in black, menacingly brandishing automatic rifles.

“Who are you?” he growled.

I hesitated, wondering if divulging my identity as a journalist would not draw the ire of the bandit who may fear that I would report the robbery if spared.

“Who are you?” he quizzed again, this time, rather impatiently.

“My name is Yinka Fabowale” I answered, wondering if that would satisfy the hoodlum.

“What are you doing here?” he pursued.

“I’m here for tomorrow’s election” I replied.

“Oya, follow me”, he ordered.

He then turned to the receptionists who had turned ashen faced in fear behind their desk and bawled at them, “Hand me your phones!”

The scared hotel workers hurriedly complied. The young man with whom I was watching the football was also taken up. Trembling, he disclosed that he was a student living nearby and had come to watch the world cup match.

Together with him, I was led outside, sandwiched between the gang leader and his comrades. Now outside, I beheld greater number of them in military fatigues and mobile police uniforms, swarming the hotel premises. I was sat on the bare floor, with two of them guarding me, with nozzles of their guns trained on me.

Then the bedlam began. They stormed the main building and annex structures of the hotel, going from room to room, banging doors and shouting “Identify yourself!” The whole place was thrown into commotion as screams rented the air.

While this was going on, I calmly observed that some of the vehicles the invaders came in bore official government number plates, while their discussions and demeanour suggested that they were rather security personnel. My suspicion was confirmed shortly later, when I spotted the inscription, DSS, on the back of one of them in mufti.

It was enough to calm me down and I relaxed. Summoning up courage, I told the two operatives guarding me that I was a journalist there to cover the election and also gave a few details about myself.

“Where is your identity card?” one of them inquired.

“It’s in the car”, I replied, whereupon he led me to my official car where I parked it. I fished out the ID card and showed it to him. Satisfied, he patted me on the back and advised that I return and stay in my room promptly. He then whispered to me: “Sorry bros, it’s a joint operation involving the DSS, Army and the police. We are looking for political thugs”

Later, when the siege was over and some of the hotel guests came out to share experiences after the team’s departure, we learnt that some nearly died of shock at the frightful manner of the invasion.

The Sun Ayodele Ojo and his colleague, Bayo Obisesan, formerly of The Guardian and The Punch, said they almost had hypertension when the security agents stormed their rooms in masks and such violent manner. “We thought they were robbers! My older colleague, the poor man was in terrible shock long after they’d gone. It affected his health”, Ojo told us.

We also later learnt that similar raids were conducted in other hotels across the state, based on intelligence that one of the political parties had imported thugs to rig the polls or foment trouble and that they were housed in the various hotels.

This would seem to be true, because as at Wednesday, June 18, Charles had informed me that virtually all the hotels in the state capital were fully booked. By Thursday, however, following an announcement by the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, warning that any political thug caught in the state would have a free ride to detention in Abuja, there were suddenly vacancies in some of the hotels.

I gathered that prior to the raid on Friday, some of the DSS officers had visited our hotel earlier that day and demanded the guests’ list which they photocopied and took away.

Thus, the security precaution would seem quite in order. But the question is: Why did it have to take the dreadful form it did? In fact, why did the state agents have to wear masks while on duty, giving fright to innocent members of the public, who, of course, would be right to mistake them for rogues?

Perhaps, to cover their tracks and identities in case they made a mistake in shooting dead any innocent member of the public?

It has also been observed that the panoply of security cast on the state for the election, well-meant as it appeared, was fraught with partisanship by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) controlled Federal Government and overzealousness by some of the security operatives. For instance, on election day, six journalists were arrested and barred from covering the polls despite being duly accredited by INEC for the purpose. The reporters included: Gbenga Adesina (The News) and Jadesola Ajibola (Inspiration FM) and four of their broadcast colleagues from the Osun state Broadcasting Corporation (OSBC). While Adesina was intercepted and whisked away along Oye-Ifaki Road and later detained at the INEC State headquarters, Ajibola and the rest of the OSBC crew including the driver, were “deported” and escorted to Oke Ila, a boundary town between Ekiti and Kwara, and warned not to dare re enter the state by a mobile police team led by Commandant G.B Selekeri, who ignored the ID cards and INEC accreditation tags the reporters showed, authorizing them to cover the polls, insisting they ought to bear another official letters from INEC approving of their monitoring roles.

Although the IGP later ordered the release of the journalists and that they be accompanied back to their duty posts, following representations made to him by colleagues, they had been frustrated in the discharge of their assignment and their constitutional rights flouted, because by this time, the election was over.

One could hardly disagree with Ajibola when she remarked: “The harassment of journalists was

an indication that the authorities and security agents probably had sinister motives of preventing transparent coverage and reporting of the polling activities. It’s obvious they don’t want us around for

whatever reason best known to them. My colleagues and I had a rough deal with them despite the fact that we all identified ourselves and showed them our INEC tags. But they insisted that we should have had letters approving our coverage of the election from INEC. I don’t want to believe that this is a shameful betrayal of ignorance of the official process. I think it is a deliberate mischief to run the media

out of town”.

Also curious was the motive of the security agencies in denying Governors Rotimi Amaechi, Adams Oshiomhole and other All Progressive Congress (APC) colleagues from attending the party’s final political rally on Thursday, while allowing Musiliu Obanikoro, Mr. Jelili Adesiyan and Chief Chris Uba of rival PDP unfettered access and movements in the state on election day.

Of course, the presence of Obanikoro and Adesiyan could conveniently be justified by virtue of their offices as Ministers of State for Defence and Police Affairs, respectively, but how do you explain that of Uba, who, the outgoing governor and candidate in the election, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, alleged was moving about with men, intimidating his party’s supporters.

I think the Presidency goofed in allowing the men to go to Ekiti, having barred politicians from the opposing party who are equally state functionaries, thereby opening itself up to the charge of bias and shameful display of might. It was obvious its candidate, Mr. Ayo Fayose would win the election. It needed not have taken a course which could be used to impugn the victory.

But the PDP is lucky. Governor Fayemi, in a show of rare sportsmanship had conceded defeat and conferred legitimacy on the poll as free and fair.

For me, leaving Ado-Ekiti on Sunday morning, day after the election, was a relief from the sight of menacing guns wielded by a plague of soldiers, policemen, DSS operatives and men of the NSCDC. But the frightful experience of Friday night kept haunting my psyche.

Yinka Fabowale 

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