Fejiro Oliver

I have deliberately kept this story for a
day such as this when the governorship
election will be close and the candidate
of Babangida Aliyu, Niger State
Governor, Umar Nasko will be
contesting. Call it a report to witch
hunt Aliyu and Nasko and you won’t be
wrong. Call it a revelation of the dying
minutes to cause bad blood for the duo
and you will also not be wrong.
For months I have waited for this
moment when Nigerians especially those
from Niger State will get to know that
as they go to the polls; any attempt to
vote in Nasko, the stooge of Aliyu aka
Talba will be voting in a pseudo assassin
in government house who will be
covering the monumental corrupt
practices of the State Governor. I must
confess that my joy knows no bound
when each time I release the fraudulent
government of Talba and the indigenes
call and text vowing never to vote for
him as a Senator and they made good
their promise. This is the moment that
we have been waiting for, when the true
story of my kidnap and subsequent
imprisonment will be made public.
As a journalist, I got fed up with
reports concerning the Southern
governors which are often laced with
corrupt practices. I could not imagine
why only the governors from the South
were always at the receiving end of
fraudulent practices while we forget
that there are governors also in the
Northern parts of the country. My
inquisitiveness got the better part of me
as I began to look for the most corrupt
among the Northern governors and my
searchlight landed on Niger State
government.
I will not tell us how I did the
investigations that unravel fraud worth
over N40 billion of Nigerlites wasted in
frivolous contracts and expenditures
that never showed in the State or the
residents. To prove to the world that it
won’t be only about document, I got
citizen reporters who snapped the mess
of a State called Niger; and I set to
work.

MY CONTACT WITH THEM BEGAN
On August/September 2014, I sent a
message to the State Commissioner for
Information requesting him to respond
to the fraudulent report in my custody.
A gentleman I must confess; he
responded that I could also contact the
Secretary to the State Government (SSG)
Saidu Ndako (who signed some of the
document used in siphoning the
money), which I did. Ndako replied me
and pleaded that I send him the
document through his mail which I
declined. Instead I sent him parts of the
allegations through sms after which he
replied that he will get back to me. Few
minutes later, I got a call from a
person who identified himself as Israel
Ebije, the Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to
the governor. He promised to call me
back later in the day which he truly did
around 8:30 pm.
I told Ebije of the documents and
demanded for his response since he was
speaking for the State Government.
Instead he opted to negotiate the story
to be killed with cash, while I also tell
him the source of my documents. In
response, I demanded to know from
him if he was a journalist, which he
answered in the affirmative. “It is
people like you that kill this profession.
If you were not a CPS, but a practicing
journalist and a government official
asked you to disclose your source, will
you”, I replied him. He promised to get
back to me with response and ended
the call. THIS WAS ALL RECORDED in my
phone!

THE THREAT BEGAN
Days later, I reached out to the SSG and
CPS in the evening that since they could
not give official response, their silence
will be taken as consent. Immediately
Ebije replied me via text message that I
should check my mail which I did and
lo and behold, there was a threat daring
me to go ahead with the publication
and see if our civil conversation will not
turn military. Alongside the threat was a
lousy statement written by Ilyasu
Dhakco, which had no effect to the
story I investigated. I contacted my
publisher (Daily Voice NG) in United
States and we did an editorial calling on
the State Security Service (SSS) to effect
the arrest of Ebije for threatening my
life. The next day followed a photo
news on how the State Government
under developed the State, showing
dilapidated schools and roads.
On the 18th of September 2014 around
10:13am, my phone rang and behold it
was the SSG calling. I picked it and
after pleasantries, he questioned why I
went ahead with the story. I reminded
him that he never replied to our
questions and in his usual
characteristics, he lied that he was out
of the country. Then like a baby, he
began to plead that I should not
continue to embarrass the State
Government with the big one coming
up. Like a baby denied of her mother’s
milk and a voice so humble, he begged
that I give them a chance to say their
own part of the story before going
ahead to publish. I reminded him again
that I personally offered to pay my
flight ticket in August to Abuja for the
interview which Ebije later cancelled
and as such I won’t come again. At this
juncture, he requested that I come to
Minna which I refused, suggesting the
same Abuja where he will meet me.
Then he offered to pay for the flight
ticket for me to come the next day, and
requested that I send my account
number, which I refused; telling him to
make the booking and send the flight
details via mail.
Cunning SSG, he called later around
1pm that there was no one to send for
the booking as all of them had gone
home and I should send my account
number so I can do it myself. It
sounded funny that the SSG with all his
retinue of aides could not find someone
to send. I bluntly told him to call back
any of the aides and send, to which he
muttered some words and ended the
call. In the evening around 7pm, one of
my staff called me that the flight ticket
has been paid for with the details sent
to the official mail. AGAIN ALL THESE
OUR CONVERSATIONS WERE RECORDED!
I went to the Asaba International
Airport to board my flight of 4:30pm.
There we exchanged text messages,
where he offered to send a cab to pick
me but I refused; insisting that
someone will pick me when I get there.
I requested that he meet me at the
Anchor Point (the venue where National
Association of Seadogs meets) in Abuja
when I arrived and I flew to Abuja.

THE ASSASSINATION PLOT

As soon as I got down from the airport,
I switched on my spy camera biros to
begin monitoring every event. The spy
biro was taken along to record all the
conversation I will be having with the
SSG, which never came to pass. As I
stepped out of the arrival hall, with a
female co-passenger who I was using
my brand new Samsung S5 to snap;
some men approached me pretending to
be Airport cab men. At this point, there
was uproar as the real cab operators
stated that the men who approached
me are new and cannot carry me. That
was when one of them (the most
professional of them) flashed his ID
card bearing SSS and in a commando
fashion, I was rushed into a small
vehicle, handcuffed and blindfolded by
three men, while two hilux were in
front. While in the vehicle, it was
discovered that my Samsung S5 was
missing which they attested to that they
left on the Airport ground. I heard the
short one among them (very
unprofessional) who sat in from saying
“Strike force, when you get to a quiet
place, park let us carry out the
operation”. Then I knew this was an
assassination about to take place. My
remaining two phones kept ringing, and
at this point the one who sat by my
right removed the blindfold and told me
the names of the persons calling. I told
them that it was a journalist calling and
he was aware that I was coming to see
the Niger State Government. Another
call came in from UK and when they
demanded to know, I told them it was
an activist friend who also knew I was
coming to see the government.
It was at this junction that they stopped
the vehicle, came down and put a cross
which I later got to know was to the
State Government. What I heard next
from the same short SSS official was
“he should be brought back alive to
Minna”, and the convoy continued.
While in the vehicle, the short one
suggested that I should be kept with the
strike force, which was countered by
the one sitting by my right, who
asserted that he can’t take such a risk
as I may be injured by the strike force
which will not be good for the
operation.
Late into the night we kept driving very
roughly till we got to the Minna
Command. After taking records of all
that was with me, I was taken into a
small detention room with foam and a
blanket inside. With a chain on my legs,
I was locked up.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW.
*** Fejiro Oliver is an investigative
journalist who was abducted by the
government of Niger State in 2014 for
exposing the rots in the State and the
corrupt governance style of Governor
Babangida Muazu Aliyu

http://www.dailyvoiceng.com/the-true-story-why-niger-state-governor-kidnapped-and-imprisoned-me-for-14-days/