ERHC On The Move wrote of the interview just this past Thursday and reported that Dr. Gbenga Obasanjo, the president's son, had countered publication of the interview by saying through his lawyer that at no time had he actually granted the journalist an interview, and that aside from some general information, the comments attributed to him were "invented."
Journalist Omoyele Sowore, a cofounder of Elendureports, a muchraking Nigerian news Website, was accused of inventing much of an interview with the son of President Olusegun Obasanjo. An interview published in the Sun of Nigeria, however, casts doubt on the accusers, not Sowore.
In reading the interview with the journalist, however, we came to see Sowore through a different prism. He is clearly anti-government, and as such would have ample reason to embarrass President Obasanjo if the opportunity presented itself. That does not mean, however, that he invented any of the conversation, and we regret having used that characterization of the younger Obasanjo's reported comments.
We would dissent, however, from Elendureports' article about Sir Emeka Offor. We are not under the impression that Offor is a rose in a stinking garden; we know he has scrambled to the top through any means available - which are the only means of doing so, we think, in Nigeria. We do, however, consider him a straightforward businessman who honors his obligations. Elendureports seemed unable to grasp the simplicity of that characterization.
In any case, here is the interview with this remarkable young journalist, a co-founder of Elendureports:
Meet Omoyele Sowore, the activist–journalist whose interview with Gbenga Obasanjo is rocking the country
By Beifoh Osewele
Friday, January 13, 2006
Mr. Omoyele Sowore, US-based Nigerian internet journalist and one of the brains behind the famous Elendureport has tasked Nigerian journalists to rise up and use the enormous power at their disposal. He says rather than wait for the freedom of information bill to be delivered to them on a platter, they should actually go out and wrest it.
"You know journalists are supposed to be the most powerful group, apart from the executive, legislature and judiciary. They cannot actually wield that power because they have refused to take the necessary steps because they think that information would be given to them on a platter of gold. It is not going to happen", Sowore said in an interview with Daily Sun during his recent visit to Nigeria.
According to the former University of Lagos students’ union president whose interview with Dr. Gbenga Obasanjo published in the current edition of The News is causing hoopla: "The Freedom of Information Bill is not going to be passed by lobbying. There has to be much pressure. Even if it means that all journalists in this country would go on strike, stop covering the National Assembly, until they pass the law, we should do it.
This is the kind of pressure that would make impact. If we blank out the National Assembly for two weeks, all of them are attention seekers and attention lovers, they would act. If nobody mentions their names in the newspapers for two weeks, nobody would tell them before they convene a special sitting to pass the bill."
Sowore also comments on the third term saga, noting that the idea came about because Nigerians who fought to make democracy a reality in the land left the trenches too soon.
Growing up
I had a little motivation (as an activist) from when I was really young. That was when I was 10 years old, in a small town called Kiribo in Ondo State, where I was born. My village was invaded on December 24, 1980 by the police. Our market day then was every nine days and so, the young men in the village had resisted the usual police tradition of extortion.
The resistance was mainly engineered by some of the young men from the city that knew what is obtainable in civilized societies. After chasing the police away, they reinforced, and about 300 of them came back in the night, beating, breaking doors and raping women. Even my cousin was raped that night.
Since I was 10 years old, I had been preoccupied with the brutality of the state. I developed pathological hatred for people in government, not just the police. I hated the tax collectors who in their bid to get taxes, collected wrappers from market women and left them to walk away with their underpants. That still happens.
With that experience, I saw the brutal side of the police and hated the government. That the government that could not provide water, post office, schools and other basic amenities, could afford to send battalions of policemen to harass villagers, was unacceptable to me. I actually cut my teeth in the struggle when I entered the University of Lagos in 1989. Of course, as we were coming, there was this World Bank and its structural adjustment programme which the students activists were fighting against. So, I quickly joined.
There were clandestine teachings then, by activists who came from town to discuss the happenings. The meetings were secret and done in rooms of union leaders, as their presence was never announced in school. The discussions centred on development in the nation and how to resist injustice.
Unfortunately, University of Lagos, was Eko for Show, with nobody interested in the political and economic situation of the country. So, we started building the movement, which was a non-violent means of fighting the system.
Life as an activist
My involvement in the cult issue, was just part of it. What actually happened was that, I became so popular among the students, that people did not know I was new to the system. It now happened that there was plan for SAP protest, and I volunteered to head one of the battalions that passed through Bariga with Sylvester Odion Akhaine.
Segun Mayegun (then president, University of Lagos Students Union Government) led another battalion that went through Yaba, where we met with the police. Many students and innocent civilians were killed in that protest. It was a ‘fantastic’ day, but the shock was quick to come. We were expelled as soon as the riot was over. Mayegun was arrested and detained alongside Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Femi Falana. I was later arrested and released after much beating and torture by the police.
June 12 was another period, where we played a gallant role. Of course, it was a combined effort of the articulate and indefatigable students of Unilag. I was just a catalyst, who galvanized the students for the struggle. Many welfare issues were also addressed squarely in the school. Prof. Nurudeen Alao, then Vice-chancellor had to abandon his position 24 days to the expiration of his tenure.
Our struggle brought down about three governments. It was first Babangida. Then for Shonekan, we stayed on the street every day for 82 days till his government crumbled. Although no person can claim credit for Abacha’s fall, I would say we made the country ungovernable for him.
Close shaves
One thing I tell people is that, if you were an activist under any of the regimes in the country, the same time with me, then every day was a potential final day for you. That is a reality. There was a day we were protesting on campus and the police shot people beside me.
The cult issue became so popular because, for the first time, there was a student union activist who actually came out to confront cultism. The cult issue made me popular, because people who hear about the way I was treated and the cult attack on me became sympathetic. The cults were obviously favoured, even when it was clear they were wrong. The whole student activist who fought the ill were either killed or jailed alongside the cult members. Our agitation to be readmitted to school, was used as a means by the authorities to readmit the cultists back to school.
We graduated the same day and none of them was punished. But most importantly, it does not deviate from my struggle for democracy, because the fight against the cult was like fighting against the branch of one of the greatest ills in this country. Obviously, the cult guys were the children of the same people we were fighting in government. So, it was a matter of dying for an idea that would live, and not living for ideas that would die. That was my attitude to life at Unilag as a student.
Journey into journalism
It is true I read Geography. How did I come into journalism? Well, I have always written, but it was more like writing opinions on what is going on in the country. Nigeria is a bad case. It is a country where everything could be all right, but everything is going wrong. And it was not acceptable to me and many people. As a person, I was tired of complaining about what was going on in Nigeria in Internet chat rooms or calling people to vent my anger about it.
So, I decided one day that I wanted to change the way information is delivered to people in Nigeria. I told myself it was possible. I don’t consider this to be an insult to the people who are on the frontline. I see myself a Blogger, rather that a journalist. What I decided to do was to practise what I call a one-man journalism from the basement of my apartment in New York. I got a laptop so I could start looking into stories on the net.
I started by writing stories for journalists in Nigeria. I would write and let them use their bylines on the stories. At a point I discovered that the management of such media didn’t allow the real fact to be heard and I was tired of undisclosed sources and undisclosed names on issues. I just don’t like when I see in newspapers a fact so genuine and so important with names withheld or undisclosed. So, I decided I will be publishing in a way that people can hear directly what I know especially the fact that I have at my disposal.
It was in the course of doing this that I met Jonathan (Elendu). He was already publishing on the Internet. When we started, I had several stories and he had only one but I assured him that if we write the story on any Nigerian leader that is true they would provide us with more stories. I am happy about the fact that Nigeria newspapers are using our reports.
I think that was one thing that was unintended. But we are quite happy with this unintended consequence because it has taken us much work off people we call foot soldier-journalists like you who are in the street running after great news. And when you get to your office because of the bureaucratic bottleneck or interest, they may never get published. They get stuck. These are things I hear from journalists that made me feel bad. Now people know that if they have good stories and they can’t push it, most of the time Elendureport will get the same story and the newspapers will blame themselves for not using it.
So, it expands the democratic space for information and that is the advantage of the Internet. And we are taking advantage of the Internet. For example, I don’t get paid , Elendu doesn’t get paid, but we use our money to publish these stories. Sometimes after we have finished writing the stories we don’t get money to buy calling cards to call sources inside Nigeria or to call the sources of our stories, we have to wait for a few more days to get paid for our various day time jobs to make calls to confirm our stories. Even when we have the fact, we still owe a duty to hear from the sources or the subject of our stories.
I am happy that it has lifted the burden off the ordinary journalist who is working very hard. Now at least we are giving them the necessary complementality from outside the country to augment what is being done on ground here. I really appreciate what the ordinary journalist is doing in Nigeria. I mean the genuine ones. You see, it takes much work, pressure, and danger also. This is a country that is manacled by some group of people called estate managers.
They have turned Nigeria into an estate that they run the way they like. They are the landlords that decide who are the tenants and when they like they remove or eliminate them. Nigeria of 2006 is where Chicago was in 1920 when the Al-Capone was running the place. The police, customs, and all security agencies in this country are tied to the apron string of the criminals who call themselves leaders in this country.
Third term agenda
The reason there was a third term agenda in the first place was the fact that people got out of the trenches. One of the reasons I left Nigeria was that I discovered that there was apathy and ignorance on the part of people who should know better. People started celebrating Obasanjo two months after he came to office because they went and adjusted the transmitter somewhere and there was regular electricity for two months.
By then, I had left Nigeria and people were saying that the government that will deliver us has come. That was stupid. One reason I say so is that Obasanjo has never been known to do anything good other than inheriting power and claiming credit. He has been able to fool many people with his ‘it is not my will’ and people get fooled to the extent that they actually believed that Obasanjo was coming to rescue this country.
I marvelled at that and it took too long for people to realize that. I realized that and if you read my writing when I left this country, I have been consistent that Obasanjo is leading us nowhere and nothing will come out of his government. It has come to general acceptance that Obasanjo is leading the country nowhere and his government is a failure. And he has not done anything for this country. In the power, educational, health and transportation sectors, what is there to show? I mean look at the way prices are skyrocketing everyday.
In terms of even corruption that he claims to be fighting, this country is in more corruption than when nobody was fighting it. Under the Babangida regime, it was propeller engine corruption; you have to start it before it moved. Now it is on auto-pilot and even Obasanjo knows it. The presidency is the most corrupt. That is why I always asked them when they say things like ‘you know we’re privatizing Nigeria’ because everything is so inefficient. I believe if they really believe in privatization they should start with the presidency.
Now coming to the third term agenda, they are mooting the third term agenda because they found out that the country is fertile for any idea. Anybody can come from anywhere and just bring an idea like we have to start castrating every male Nigerian and people will look at their private part and say as long as they are not castrating me and it is the new born they are castrating, they would accept it. Any idea can germinate in Nigeria no matter how terrible it is.
It is not only the third term agenda that baffles me, it is the fact that the like of Babangida can think of running for office. He is not in one law court or the other thinking of how to reduce his jail term but thinking of Aso Rock. The fact of third term and IBB’s presidential aspiration shock me in equal proportion. The fact is, I don’t make predictions but the third term plan will go nowhere. That much I know.
NANS [National Assn. of Nigerian Students]
I am saddened that NANS could be asking Obasanjo to stay beyond 2007. Looking today at NANS, I wish it does not exist. If there was no NANS, then I won’t have been disappointed at the students’ movement. The present NANS leadership is deliberately involved in national fraud. They know that what they are doing is bad and they are doing it because of their pecuniary interest. Because of the desire to make quick money and quick profit they have turned themselves into charlatans.
That is a shame. What is happening in NANS is a betrayal of the hopes and aspirations of the young people because that was the platform we used very strongly to change many things in this country. NANS practically chased Babangida out of power. NANS is committing a crime against humanity in Nigeria.
My fears
I love to say that politicians are bastards. I am not afraid to say it anywhere I go. Since I came into the country people have been telling me that I will be killed but the very idea I challenge in my struggle is that nobody will have the right to steal your commonwealth and still have the right to kill you. The threats I get everyday don’t move me. The number of reports I have written shows the number of time I would have died; so why should I worry about death?
Second class citizen
I don’t feel at home in the US. I wish things were better in Nigeria. We are more like second class citizens. Even Wole Soyinka has not been spared as he has been subjected to all kinds of degrading treatment. Even common South Africa that was borrowing money from Nigeria did that to him. This (Nigeria) is where we should be. This is our country and we should try to make it better.
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