Date Published: 08/24/09
Life With Oladimeji Abitogun
Journey through Ghana and Nigeria: A reporter’s Notebook
I was airborne for destination Accra on Thursday, 9 th July, 2009. I had boarded the plane alongside other passengers, some of them world renowned news – reporters with some of the leading media outlets in the world. As I sat in the huge expanse of space that was the belly of the huge Delta Airline plane, hardly did I know the who and who aboard that flight.
We arrived Accra, the chief city of Ghana in the early hours of Friday, July 10, the same morning of the day the personae of my mission to Ghana, President Barrack Obama would arrive on his first official trip to Sub – Sahara Africa.
We were going through the usual routine immigration clearance when I spotted Anderson Cooper, the Managing Editor of Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, the same guy that Rush Limbaugh, the right wing loquacious radio talk show host often ridicules and teases as AC 180. I made my way through the mob of admirers that had quickly milled around AC to request for a whistles top chat. I wanted to ask him about the peace and serenity of Ghana, which bore complete opposite to the usual skewed American media view of Africa as a place of incurable plague and misery. AC was receptive himself, but there was this individual in his crew who was behaving as a type of Prince of Persia, determined to stop me from talking with AC. He was zealous and vehement in making sure that I did not get to my target. He felt the time was not just there for AC to grant me audience. So I chided him for trying to do to me what no one would do to any CNN crew. I was scandalized that it was a fellow black man trying to sabotage me that way. When the fellow saw my determination, he yielded and I was able to get to the white haired young AC. I knew I had to do what mattered most: I pressed my complimentary card into his palm and told him to let us have a moment whenever we were back in the US. He said he would give me a call. I am still waiting for his call.
On that same flight, I met a young Ghanaian – American, a script writer and CEO of a line of beauty products in Hollywood. This acquaintance only appreciated being known, following the code of practice among Guild of Writers, just to see the movies which they script and not their faces. But this fellow traveler would later introduce me to the guy that played the lead role in the Perfect Picture – Chris Attoh. We thought we would be together in both Accra and Lagos, but yours sincerely’s schedule was packed and so, we would have a more fulfilling time together in the future.
As we passed through the initial formalities at the Airport, I began to pay close attention to how Ghana and to some extent, the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, worked. When I left Africa about seven and half years ago in voluntary exile, to save my life, a SIM card for Global Satellite Mobile (GSM) telephone sold for as much as $300, it sold for $4 when I arrived Accra. It was the same in Nigeria. And the cell phone handsets go for as low as $2.50 sometimes. Some go for as high as $500. Te cheap sets often come from China and they can be annoyingly loud in their ringing tones.
In relative terms, Ghana is well organized. From the arrival point to the point of embarkation in town, a newly arrived person has no fear of getting lost or being swindled. There is a taxi pool through which the relevant Board insures that every visitor is safe.
The roads are clean.
The virility of a nation can usually be measured in the value and strength of its money. The worth of the Ghanaian Cedi, once seen as utterly worthless, is now strong. It exchanges for one US dollar to one cedi, twenty – five pesowas. Thus a ride from the Accra International Airport to my Hotel, Liberty Court, was thirteen Cedi. And the cab driver was honest about that. The culture of tipping which Africans found reluctant to imbibe by my own analysis does so much to encourage corruption on the continent. So I never forgot a princely way of saying thank you to whoever assisted me to make something happen. As the taxi driver left me to the care of the hotel employees, I started wondering about the number of able bodied men and women, even young boys and girls of school ages, hawking all sorts of merchandise on Accra streets, in between stops at traffic lights. I had a better perspective in that lifestyle that made Ghana to look to me like the sub – regional big brother, Nigeria. When I asked one or two workers how much they were paid every month, I was told that they get an average of about c125.00 that is about $100.00 every month. I was appalled at what the potential private sector employer assumed to be a living wage. Little wonder that so many people looked so gaunt and hungry.
As I settled down to the clean but single furnishing of my $40.00 a night room, I was thinking of enjoying uninterrupted electricity. I have not witnessed any major light outage in seven and half years of life in the United States of America. I do not stupidly expect that we would be able to match that fit in Africa, with the kind of leadership everywhere of the state of our economy, but I could not help thinking that Ghana would be different because I had fed on that view. I had been told Ghana had just celebrated its equivalent of landing man on the moon, namely uninterrupted power supply for ten years. I looked forward to the experience because the light there provided would help me to curb the aggressive charge and bites of the notorious mosquitoes and other bugs of tropical Africa.
The unthinkable happened. Light was taken. I had to rush into the bathroom and took a cold shower which for me was a blessing. I regularly shower in the US, but the water always had to be mixed to a certain temperature. I had expected that the light would be returned within a reasonable amount of time. It took a long time. I consoled myself that going back to the Accra International Airport to witness the spectacular historic arrival of President Barrack Obama would spare me the agony of life without electricity. I went to the airport with my crew and came back, there still was no light. Instead, the loud noise from a standby power generator was stirring the peace of the night. I was deprived the pleasure of listening to the cacophony of noises from nocturnal creatures like frogs, crickets, owls etc. I could not even hear the warning and normally excitable barking of the dogs or the meow of a cat, to know if danger lurked anywhere. But I was always assured that I would not need all that that Ghanaians are peaceful and law – abiding people.
The day of my arrival, I had taken the liberty to discover Accra night life. I got the cab man to take me. I was interested in knowing how sub-regional integration of ECOWAS is working and how West Africans were relating to each other. Ghanaians often have their discomfort about foreigners coming to take over their economy, but that concern is now being doused by the necessary promo to attract foreign investments. Several Nigerian companies have opened factories in Ghana. One man from Nigeria whose name and kindness is talked about is the millionaire publisher of Ovation in Ghana, a Nigerian, Mr. Dele Momodu. I think Ghanaians say they love him and he is always approachable. Within the Nigerian community, Mr. Momodu is well respected. He often intervenes to make sure that Nigerians obey the laws and customs of the host country. I visited Momodu’s office and the Place of Ovation restaurant, they are classy investments. Those who say journalists are not organized enough to be business handlers need to go and see how Momodu is doing it.
I also took time to understand how Accra worked. I found loud horns always making me nervous, thick smoke often emit from the exhaust pipes of trucks and rickety cars, but those jalopies do not form the majority of vehicles on Accra roads.
I came back to my hotel accommodation and was welcomed by a staff with the excuse that there was light outage for reason that the utility board was trying to put things in order for Obama’s visit. Obama would never know what I and ordinary folks were experiencing; maybe volts were being rationed to make sure he enjoyed his stay. The generator worked until the early hours of the following day. I was already up the day of reporting the presidential events of the day. We had a make shift ad hoc bureau to capture a bird’s eye view of activities from the Osu Presidential Castle, the Hospital and Cape Coast Castle. We filed to our different places of assignments. Movement was restricted in some parts of Accra. But getting out early, we were able to overcome that. As we took in the ever developing Accra landscape and backslapped each other on the successful visit of Obama, I began to think of the average Ghanaian. Yes, democracy and peaceful transfer of power have taken place, how much economic reliefs can the common man hope for? I was looking towards an answer on that from both President Attoh Mills and his guest, Obama. The amount of crude oil recently discovered in Ghana has been determined to be in considerable commercial quantity, but not something comparable to the proven reserve in neighboring Nigeria. The excitement on the faces of Ghanaian leaders in asking for American backing to tap the reserves made to shudder and think that they could make the mistake of big brother Nigeria. Already, every focus is moving away from all that agricultural ingenuity has brought Ghana – some relative prosperity. The average Ghanaian genuflects, they should work out a relationship between natives and expatriate workers. The feeling of subjugation and subservience often meted out to the host communities in Nigeria has always been a major factor in the unrest often experienced in the Niger – Delta.
President Obama has his useful insights into the dynamics of enemy politics. He quickly tempered the new exuberance of Ghanaians and advised that alternatives to oil, like solar and wind, flora and fauna could be tapped as well since they seem to be abundantly available all over Africa.
By midnight of Saturday, July 11, I was already thinking of how to find my way to Lagos Nigeria, to see for myself, the progress the land of my birth is making in its socio – economic and political evolution.
As I journeyed with the group of youths from the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Ojodu, Lagos, I tried to contrast and understand little I could scratch beneath the surface of life in West Africa. We drove for eight hours in the luxury holiday bus from Accra to Aflao, the border between Ghana and Togo. The road which we were travelling did not look international. All the fast track mumbo jumbo often mouthed at ECOWAS summits over the years has failed to fly. Life in the suburb must really be difficult for West Africans. I do not see much presence in terms of Central governments assistance to most villages and small towns. At least, Ghana tried to put some gravel on their portion of the roads. In Togo, the asphalt surface on the road is completely washed off by erosion.
Approaching Lome was so much different. The influence of French civilization, lavish colonial heritage, was everywhere. Lome the capital is really beautiful, but the Gendarmes at the point of entry look like they could be easily provoked. At the border post, I changed all my residual Ghanaian currencies back to US dollars.
We drove for another five hours and we made our way to Cotonou, Republic of Benin or Dahomey. I found out that ladies on the bus usually wanted to buy stuff than men do. I had become familiar with few passengers on the bus, and I sometimes allowed the attendant or conductor on the bus to make a fool of himself trying to attempt taking undue advantage of me. At every check point he wanted to make me feel uncomfortable as if I did not have the correct papers, but I had been issued an e–gratis from the Ghanaian Consulate in New York and that permitted me to go anywhere in West Africa, plus I was holding a Nigerian passport. And I have strong pride in that. I never gave his antics any undue attention.
The leader of the group, Olumide, Jumoke Showemimo and Funsho Apasa were fun to be with. They tried their best to reassure me that life in Nigeria was not what the media often portrayed.
We made it to Lagos at 10p.m on Sunday, July 12 2009. Everywhere was dark as we alighted from the bus at Ojodu. I had made a mistake of not having Nigerian Naira on me to afford the taxi man to my destination somewhere in the not too far Magodo Estate in Shangisha. My friend, Jumoke Showemimo whom I understand later, was on hand to show the typical Nigerian kindness, she paid the cab driver N2,000 on my behalf. She never wanted the money back but I made a refund anyway. By the time I made it home, I had been on the bus for almost 15 hours. The following morning, Monday July 13, I made my way to the Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos. I attended the 75th birthday symposium of a personal inspiration, Nobel Laureate in Literature, Professor Wole Soyinka. It was hosted by the Wole Soyinka institute for Investigative Journalism. That was a good start for me on my fact finding mission to Nigeria.
I spoke with former Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu, notable poet and political scientist, Mr. Odia Ofeimum, Professor of Journalism and leading international reporter, Dr. Olatunji Dare and Mr. Ilemakin Soyinka. I am sure you have read the reports of my separate encounters with some of them. Others would still come. But the guest of honor, Soyinka, himself was unavoidably absent.
As I travelled from Lagos, en-route Abuja, I was looking out for the improvement in, and maintenance of our infrastructures. I noticed that some progress has been made in Lagos, at least Oshodi has now become a free way. But poor supply of electricity becomes a big issue. And something has to be done about that. I was watching out for illegal check points, they still pop up here and there, just that they are now exceptions and not the rule. I took notes and purposed to ask Governor Fashola about that later in the interview which he later gladly obliged.
If Fashola is working in Lagos, I am sorry to say, I did not find that kind of attitude in the Ogun State side. In places like Akute – Ajuwon and Sango – Ota, despite the accruable revenues, Ogun state government does little or nothing to improve the quality of life of citizens.
Oyo state too has that kind of reputation. In Ibadan, neighborhoods are dirty and roads and public buildings have fallen apart. Governor Akala must know that being Governor is more than maintaining convoys and blowing sirens.
The road between Ilesha, in Osun state and Akure, Ondo State is now impassable, but I noticed that citizens are doing their best to enjoy the life. There is no longer unrest on the face of it, but darkness can breed the worst of situations. Nigeria is almost always now in perpetual darkness. No light.
When I got to Ekiti and Ondo, I saw so much tranquility and transformations. I grew up in these two states although I have lived in virtually every part of Nigeria as an adult. Democracy seems to be working to the extent that people can talk freely and let elected leaders know that their ineptitude can be noted and questioned. I actually wept for joy and surprise at the level of development in both Akure and Ado – Ekiti. I saw things in the changing look of the University of Ado Ekiti, which I attended.
I just want our elected officials to know that things would work better if the same level of development is replicated everywhere, especially in rural towns and villages. There is too much pressure on our urban facilities.
I also had audience with the Governor of Ekiti State, Engr. Segun Oni and later an audience with Governor Segun Mimiko of Ondo State.
My crew and I got on the place, Arik and found our way to Abuja. We decided to go to Abuja to challenge alleged order by President Yar’ Adua that security outfits must arrest some of us whenever we came to Nigeria. At a meeting with the Minister of Information and Communications, Dr. Dora Akunyili, we were told that the allegation was a hoax. Nobody sees us as enemies. We visited some security officials and we were not arrested.
But Abuja looked liked a fully restored city, just that the rich now also cries. People in Abuja also experience light outage now. That was unheard of in the days of Babangida, Abacha, Abubakar, and initially Obasanjo. The story has changed.
Like you, I was thinking Nigeria has been totally redeemed. No. I ran into the ugly face of Nigerian Judiciary in Abuja, a judge who has no respect for life or the rule of law. I have to talk about her because I think this judge has to be rebranded for the sake of us who love Nigeria.
Pretty Justice Constance Rekia Momoh: An Ugly Face To Nigerian Justice
Abuja is where the most improbable and the near impossible often happens, like the recent dishonorable and gross misconduct of the so-called Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, Justice Constance Momoh.
Justice Constance Rekia Momoh, the Auchi born misadventure, who was once readily available in Edo State Judicial service to rubber – stamp the irreparable roller – coaster of political leadership of ex-governor Lucky Igbinedion is the personification of the fifth column onslaught to throw the spanner in the determination of President Umaru Yar’ Adua to see the rule of law work in Nigeria.
Get ready for the real life shocking encounter with the non-polished Constance Momoh, a tale of envy, jealousy and greed and how she and her cohorts continue to use the powerful judicial process in Nigeria to swindle, dispossess private home and land owners of hard earned properties. They also disregard, disrespect and often determine to kill with unwarranted police backing in the process of stripping people of personal possessions.
I am talking of the foolish decision of Justice Momoh to humiliate herself and dance naked before the watching eyes of Nigerians and the media in Abuja by forcefully dislodging the honorable retired Judge and member of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, Professor Peter Adetumbi Olasehinde Oluyede from a house, #1, Jomo Kenyatta Street, Asokoro, Abuja.
Prof. P.A.O. Oluyede had bought the house after the Federal Capital Development Authority; F.C.D.A. in Abuja had listed and advertised the house for sale.
Prof. Oluyede had lived in the house for more than sixteen years, and when the Olusegun Obasanjo administration decided to monetize the housing and mobility related benefits to federal government employees, Oluyede and all other serving members of the Code of Conduct Tribunal expressed interest to buy the different properties in which they were variously quartered.
The bid was open and fair. I have to relate the background to this whole event so that the critical reader would know that Nigeria as a nation is not a 419 country, but some of its most trusted operatives have the tendency to demonstrate that kind of irresponsible behavior. I am not scared of Momoh and I have told her to her face that she would not have any honor or respect until she walks the path of honor by putting a stop to envy and covetousness.
So Professor Oluyede and other members of the Tribunal won bid for their different quarters. Professor Oluyede got the quarter for about forty million naira. Out of which he was to immediately pay ten percent upfront. He did and paid a little over four million naira.
All the while, Justice Momoh was serving in Edo state and was helping Lucky Igbinedion to perpetuate an unprecedented epoch of misrule. Some of Professor Oluyede’s contemporaries worked fast and redesigned their own purchases. Some of these properties are still owned by them and operated and rented out to banks and other blue chip companies along the same road on which ECOWAS Secretariat is located in Abuja.
Shortly after the houses legally, fairly and legitimately acquired by professor Oluyede, the then Chairman of the Tribunal, Sabo and other members, there was a change of leadership at the Tribunal. Remember that the houses, by law, do not belong to the Code of Conduct Tribunal, although its judges were once quartered there. The house was owned and sold by the F.C.D.A.
The clue to understanding the motive for the current irascible, illogical and irrational misconduct of Momoh traced to when she first came to inspect the assets of the tribunal. She was allegedly brought by the retired Chairman, now late Justice Sabo.
She was said to have looked at the grandeur of the sprawling property located close to the headquarters of the SSS on Aso Drive, Asokoro Abuja and started thinking loud that if Judges in the Federal Judicial Service could be well quartered and also allowed to buy their former official quarter that she probably made a wrong choice in choosing to work with a State Judicial Service Commission.
She was gently scolded and consoled not to sob or get so envious like that, in the open, just that she should remember that there was a price for every choice in life.
Soon after, Justice Momoh instigated the former F.C.T. Minister Mr. Nasir El Rufai to forcefully take possession of the house that was bought and owned by late Sabo. Sabo was driven out of the house and made homeless in Abuja. You see, Momoh understood that people and well intentioned institutions must be played against each other to make personal gains. After she engaged the classical antics, ruthless and heartless machinations such that you only find in fictional drama like Macbeth, or the real situation of Jezebel, she moved to take over properties and houses then personally. Much as she tried to feebly convince me that she had nothing to do with the heartbreak that Justice Sabo suffered and died of, I am convinced beyond reasonable doubt that she had everything to do with it.
What she did was to play El Rufai, who had lingering family differences against the then old Sabo. Even when Sabo succeeded at getting the Assistant Inspector General of Police to deploy policemen to stand guard at the soon to be taken home, Justice Momoh waved aside existing restraining order and make El Rufai to get a superior officer to issue another infraction that policemen should be removed in order that the ultimate will and greed of Justice Momoh could be realized. She did it in a clean way and now goes around rationalizing it to gullible nitwits that it was El Rufai who took Justice Sabo’s house. But El Rufai was only pawned by Momoh, because it is Momoh who eventually benefited from the devilish eviction of justice Sabo. Momoh, I don’t know if she is a Mrs or plain Justice, is the one who lives in that house today. And in perfect tune to her next expected move, she has begun moves to buy the house from the F.C.D.A.
I had to delve into a long background information on Honorable Constance Rekia Momoh in order for the reader to understand my near fatal encounter with her and her glorified thugs in Abuja in July.
I found my way to Nigeria shortly after reporting on the visit of US President Barack Obama in Ghana. And naturally I found my way to Abuja, the city I have come to love and it was where I lived for several years before I was nearly killed in the line of duty as a news reporter in 2001. I haven’t been back in Nigeria after I was evacuated from Nigeria in March of 2002 in order to seek and get appropriate medical treatment after I was almost killed in August 2001. My visit to Nigeria was two-fold. To confirm some of the reports we get from our correspondents and to also speak with the officials of the Yar’ Adua administration on alleged intent to arrest and detain Nigerian Journalists based abroad for reporting the goings-on within the country.
I succeeded at my mission. I was already thinking that all the negative reports about the …. Attitude of people who wield power and influence in Nigeria was usually exaggerated before my ugly encounter with Justice Momoh.
I chose to be humble and preferred to stay in my uncle, Professor P.A.O. Oluyede’s house while in Abuja. I had lived with Prof. Oluyede in the house as a young adult who needed to be mentored properly in life. I love his approach to life and particularly the law, which next to God and his family was his life. And he is one Nigerian I can strongly testify to be humble and non-corrupt despite his great achievements and erudition. So naturally, I wanted to feel the warmth of the environment again. Contrary to the lie that Momoh and her registrar at the court told some journalists that Oluyede rented out the property, which they claimed belonged to the tribunal, nobody lived in the house on such terms. Everyone that lived in the house was a member of Prof. Oluyede’s extended family. And as far as I know, there is no law forbidding him to rent out a property which he had bought and paid for. But I never paid a kobo while I stayed in the house. So barely twelve hours after arriving at the house in Abuja, having just wound up an assignment with the Minister of Information and Communication, Mrs Dora Akunyili, I was upstairs in the bathroom, still had some soap lather on my face, I heard a loud bang on the small metal gate at the front porch of the house. And then somebody started barking out instructions that every door must be taken down and whoever was found in the house must be shot. In truth, I panicked thinking armed robbers had gained entry into the house. So I struggled into my boxer and cleaned my face. So I came downstairs and found an unruly band of gentlemen. They, after all, were not armed robbers, only so in the way they gained forceful entry into Prof. Oluyede’s private house. So, I demanded to know who they were and why the forceful entry. Their leader, one man identified as Adamu started shouting obscene things and asked us to leave and that Justice Momoh, her lordship, had instructed them to take the house from Oluyede who was a member and Judge of the tribunal until he voluntarily retired in December 2008 was no longer a legal occupant. I was not yet briefed on the development. I did not know that my uncle, one of the honest Judges in the Nigerian Judiciary had left active service. Most of us in the house knew that the Nigerian law fundamentally allows a man or a woman to defend his property. So all of us formed a band and told them they could not take the house.
There were existing court injunctions including a pending application before an appellate court that in unmixed terms restrained Justice Momoh from taking over Oluyede’s property, but Abuja is already a city restored to its original master – plan, and it is irresistible not to share in the action. So Adamu and his men left for a while after I pleaded with them to let me finish dressing up and have a proper briefing on the disagreement.
I did not know that they did not understand peaceful negotiation, so they went back to Momoh who had been restrained by the courts and who still had a pending case to answer and she reinforced the amount of men to come and take possession of the house. Momoh did it with maximum force sending well armed policemen, some in full combat gear. They did not come with any warrant, because they knew that what they were doing was illegal. After we challenged their presence without a due warrant, they went back and reinforced with a letter hurriedly prepared and initialed on by Momoh to an Abuja police officer. In the presence of the media and passersby, they broke in, beat us up and forcefully took the house.
A gentleman in the killer squad sent by Momoh, noticing my surprise at the unreasonable amount of force deployed, suggested that I should seek audience with Justice Momoh. I therefore went to see her. She apparently had been monitoring the progress on how her orders were being executed and how my relations and I were being molested and assaulted by her agents and the police.
There was no wasting of time in being ushered into her presence. I met her with three other members and Judges of the Code of Conduct Tribunal. In attendance also was the registrar of the Tribunal and then the brigand who had led the assault on us and the house, Adamu. In my presence, Adamu was embellishing the events of the day and was lying through the teeth to this woman, Momoh, who assumed wanted to deal in honour and respect. So I admonished Adamu to quit falsehood and properly inform the woman. He had lied that Prof. Oluyede rented out the house and that vehicles were being sold in the compound and that the house had been turned into a business center. I could not stand falsehood. So I told the Judge that Adamu was behaving like an uncle tom, he had to lie to gain reckoning and relevance.
I proceeded to tell Justice Momoh my mission, which was to know why she should act in total disregard of injustice from other benchers that she could not take possession of the house until the status of ownership was addressed and sorted out.
For a while, she launched against me for organizing the media to film and report the misconduct of her agents. For all she cared, even if I worked for Reuters, I could roast. So I said I had come to have her explain to me why a man who had served Nigeria for almost fifty something years, could be so disrespected and humiliated the way Momoh chose. I also told her that the treatment of Prof. Oluyede did not bother me as much as the kind of disrespect that may come to her or any other judge for that matter after dutifully serving Nigeria. I also pointed it to her that what she has done demonstrated how vulnerable our judges and public servants are especially after they leave office. I wanted her to assist me in understanding why she was desperately trying to make an old man die of heartbreak.
So I pleaded with her to take a pause and allow the court process to take its full course. I thought I was talking to somebody who understood and believed in the rule of law.
She first went into a tirade of why pointblanknews.com published a report on her initial failed attempt to forcefully take the house. She said I was behind the publication and that I vehemently denied. But essentially, she said she had nothing personal against Prof. Oluyede and denied there was an ongoing litigation concerning her actions. She brought a law which she claimed empowered her and that “the occupant shall be removed”. So I told her Professor Oluyede had paid for the property, to which she said they had offered to refund the money.
So I asked to know if she cared what by her admission and actions, she is making an entire nation to wear the garb of 419. Nobody forced the Federal Government of Nigeria to list and advertise the house for sale and that it smirked of dishonesty to now retreat and say the house is no longer for sale after a bid had been won and initial payment made.
She said throughout that there was no personal vendetta in taking the house from Oluyede. She said a new replacement was already found for the seat vacated by Oluyede and that the new man wanted to move into the house. And the new Judge too did not pretend about that. So I pleaded with them to wait till month end to allow for peaceful removal of Prof. Oluyede’s personal belongings. They refused. They said they were only allowing the grace of just 24 hours. I thought they were dealing in integrity. They were not.
I told Justice Momoh that I would come back with my crew the following day 2p.m so that she could face the camera and be placed on record debunking the serious allegation of disregard for the rule of law contained in the pointblanknews.com report. She accepted. She took my phone number and she said I would be contacted. The following day, I was waiting for her to call me. I always honor and take seriously every appointment. The lawyers to Prof. Oluyede noted that Momoh was applying double standard. In spite of her words to me that people and things should be moved out within 24 hours by the following morning, less than 13 hours later she had brought in thugs again to tear the house apart. They threw Professor Oluyede’s things on the street. They vandalized his car. They placed everyone in a lockdown.
So the lawyers went to an Area Magistrate Court and obtained an injunction against Justice Momoh.
They served her and pasted copies on the property.
Justice Momoh did not call me for an interview. Nobody in her office was honorable enough or volunteered that courtesy to let me know that she was no longer willing to talk. Justice Momoh bragged to me that she indeed instructed the armed policemen to shoot us on sight. I know that beyond the façade of a graceful and beautiful face and gait and at 69 that she is dangerous. I mean she practically told me that her agents were not just out to maim, they were under instruction to destroy and kill. She said that there was nothing that Oluyede had achieved that she had not.
But aside the issue of law, I was thinking that there is always a place for respect for elders and old age in Africa. I did not find that grail in Justice Momoh. I find her eager and willing to hurriedly dispatch old people into early grave. And that is shocking from a senior citizen herself.
Instead of keeping an appointment for an honest explanation to the world and Nigerians, they started blackmailing Professor Oluyede. They lied through one newspaper report on the truth of the imbroglio. At the time Justice Momoh was supposed to be explaining herself to the people through my medium, she was spotted in Asokoro destroying, personally tearing down the court injunction on the fence of the house.
And she said it was nothing personal. She, Momoh, says she is a symbol of the law we must respect in Nigeria’s democracy, and that she respects the rule of law. I don’t think so. I think she acted beneath honor and integrity for treating the press with condescension and dishonesty. Worse still, she is not representing the judiciary properly. And I hope she knows that when she loses in the courts, she may have to pay for intransigencies and not through Nigeria’s money. She would have to pay from her own purse and I hope she has enough for old age.
That is the ugly side of Nigeria that I saw. It is about the mental state of the people who we appoint as Judges.
Justice Momoh also said, in response to my concern that dialogue should have been preferred instead of choosing to humiliate herself, the Tribunal the way she was going.
She said Prof. Oluyede knocked off the option of dialogue when he showed up to testify before the Senate hearing on Federal Capital Territory. She said that Oluyede also dictated her reaction by suing the Tribunal.
But why she should want to punish a well informed Nigerian for providing honest witness and testimony before a duly constituted body like the Senate is what I don’t understand. I think Justice Momoh is too self – absorbing, she is dangerously narcissistic. She is also reckless in the way she put herself before honestly interpreting and adjudicating the laws and conflicts of Nigeria.
Justice Momoh’s anger is too personal and petty only borne out of greed and envy and that kind of disposition always ends up being crowned by the fire of the anger they stoke. Nigeria will endure and live forever as a nation, as for characters like Justice Momoh; they will always enjoy our indignation for being unrepentant in trying to paint our fatherland in the wrong light. Thanks for Momoh, I could see that much has not changed abut Nigeria, even in all these seven and a half years that I have lived in exile. What good can people like Momoh do Nigeria? The last time I tried to get back to her for being so dishonest, she shouted me down on the phone and said “what kind of rubbish is that”. But I know that there is so much rubbish that the Nigerian Justice system tolerates and harbors.
Nigerian Judiciary must rid itself of residual rubbish. The misconduct of the Justice Constance Rekia Momoh is one such rubbish.
Who Do Republicans Speak For?
Some commentators would want us to believe that the on-going resistance and disturbing threats to life in the wake of the Health Reform debate is an all American situation. I strongly disagree. It is not an all American disagreement. It is a Republican orchestrated chaos. I always knew it that they would try to hijack President Barrack Obama from those who genuinely want new direction for America and voted him into office.
Republicans make me sick to the stomach at times. I have friends amongst them, but this is more that an emotional thing. They pretend that they love God but they fail to obey his commands that we must love our neighbors as ourselves. If they do not need healing and good health, since they no longer defend God, but have now started behaving as if they are God, why can’t they just shut up and let those who are dying under the heavy load of medical bills enjoy the options that the Obama administration have for us.
They have the constitutional right of saying they have enough and so, reject Obama’s recipe. But woe unto them if they would not stay personal. Woe unto them for not going with the plan and attempting to prevent the rest of us who need the plan from getting it. It is the same old bigotry and moral hypocrisy. So Sarah Palin, Newt Gingritch and their Ku Klux Klan militia, men and women should tell us what those loaded guns and graffiti threatening death to Obama, his wife and children have got to do with genuine debate.
Since no man or woman can claim to know God or play Him over the affairs of us all, God himself allows for those tactics and excesses to show us that He does not speak through pale Palin or grudging Gingritch.
They have their own agenda which is to be disrespectful to their own nation, and the symbol of its sovereignty, President Obama, who happens to be a black man at this time. Their carriage and tone have been so rude towards everybody who disagrees with them. What?
And whoever would have thought that Senator Bradley was a sincere broker in the debates, he pushed a bare- faced lie that British national Health Scheme, would allow Senator Edward Kennedy, 77, who is battling with brain tumor, to die because his bill would have been more than $22,000. Now British people have spoken out in anger against such mis-information, fear mongering and distortions. We now know that in spite of such fictitious claims in the American media, life expectancy in Britain and even some third world countries with good medical schemes is much higher than it is in the US.
So who do Republicans speak for? When would they stop playing the ostrich and allow the country to do things right? Leaving Health Care unfixed is to allow the country to continue to drift to the bottom in reckoning amongst the industrialized nations of the world. I vote for Health Reform.
Is Tinubu at War With Mimiko?
I do not think that Tinubu and Mimiko are really at war. As far as I know, Mimiko has always said he was not a member of the Action Congress to which Tinubu belongs.
But the question could be where did the details obtained in last Saturday’s The Nation piece come from? Some say the article titled “Can This Iroko Stand?” may have been written by Tinubu himself. I again beg to disagree. I think it may have been written by a hack – writer close to Chief Segun Adegoke, a former Ajasin Commissioner in Ondo State. The details in that piece contained, some fallacies and completely misleading point to that suspicion. 26 years after the tragedy of 1983, somebody is treading on dangerous ground. Why should anybody want to create a link between 1983 and now? Yes, initially, Mimiko sympathized with Onoboriowa, but he never left Unity Party of Nigeria. He went back to Ondo and became the Publicity Secretary of UPN. They said he gave a lecture at Obafemi Awolowo University but that forum was organized by Segun Adebanwi with the full endorsement of the Awolowos. Prof Bolaji Akinyemi was there, so also was General Alani Akinrinnade. Is the faceless writer of the said piece implying that these gentlemen were also NPN apologies?
The writer must really be close to the remnants of that sad chapter of the history of Nigeria to know that. So short sighted to know that what Ondo people want now is genuine unity. When the Ekitis were united with Omoboriowo and Mr. Bamidele Olumilua, they got their desire, a functional State. What Omoboriowo realized long ago was that it was wrong for anybody to exclude himself from the middle, the central government? How can a politician claim to love anyone when what he does is to mislead his people into a situation where they do not have the necessary resources to galvanize true development?
While in Nigeria recently, I discovered that Mimiko decided not to talk much because there is not yet any major achievement since becoming governor. But he was quiet too much and that encouraged rumor and speculations about him. What I gathered from his associates was that he does not seem to want the choice of decampment. And why should that be the option at this time? We should talk about development.
It is allowed to be defeated and regroup for future strifes – Political strifes. That kind of game should be left for the younger generation. I am surprised that some of the remnants of our confused past have not stopped this kind of unproductive divisive tactics and strategies that divide and keep us retarded.
If one supports the winner, there sure must be somebody that can offer support when your own time comes too.
So my point is this: Is Akin Omoboriowo not a human being? Is he not a Nigerian? What has he done that any of the ghost writers or faceless politicians behind then have not done worse that would now make it a crime for Dr. Mimiko to associate with him? And remember that Akin Omoboriowo was a Deputy Governor and later for a while, a Governor of Ondo State. We do not need people who would always use unfortunate incidents of the past to scuttle the peace of Ondo State. That is how much they love Ondo State. Even potential candidates for murder trial think they love Ondo State.
