₦airaland Forum

Sirmwill:
He is still alive

topsyking:
The verdict By Olusegun Adeniyi: Email: olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com

Having been arrested at exactly 3.30am by a truck load of soldiers who were surprised to see a “small boy” and had become sympathetic the moment they learnt I was a journalist; I did not appear before Colonel Frank Omenka until about 18 hours later. And when I finally did, for about five minutes, he busied himself reading (or at least pretended to be reading) from a file. Then he looked up and said: “You are a very lucky boy. You are here because my men defied my directive. You were to be thrown underground for two months before you are brought before me but when I came in this morning and saw you asleep on the sofa, I realised you are still a small boy whose ways can still be mended. If I fail in doing that, then I will destroy you.”


With that, Omenka, the Director of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), Apapa stood up, paced up and down for a while and sat down again. “Now let me tell you two things”, he began, “I am already provoked by what I have read in your file and you know that I stammer. So, it is in your interest that you do not provoke me any further.”

The interrogation that followed was laced with curses, abuses, intimidation and threats. At the end, Omenka said: “I am yet to make up my mind about what to do with you but I will allow you go home tonight. In fact, my men will drive you home. But tomorrow morning, you will come back here with all your articles and particularly that one where you compared General Abacha with Idi Amin. I want us to analyse them together.” As I stood up and made to go, Omenka said: “When you get home, greet your wife for me”, to which I instantly replied, “I am not yet married”.

Laughing, Omenka retorted: “I also know that. Your girlfriend is doing her youth service in Shagamu, Ogun State”. Seeing that I was startled, Omenka said, this time in a stern voice: “Young man, I know everything about you. Go and come back tomorrow. If you don’t, I will not only hunt you down, I will ensure that your mother weep over you.”
The foregoing experience occurred in 1996 at a period I was working at the defunct Concord Press, owned by the late Bashorun M.K.O Abiola but I have had to reflect on it in recent days, especially against the background that many people who confuse democracy with development have had to dismiss the last 17 years. But it is important to also add that unlike many other journalists and pro-democracy activists, I was lucky to have found favour with Omenka throughout my five days of interrogation. At that period, not many people survived DMI in Apapa to tell their stories while for some, the scars (physical and emotional) of that era will follow them to their graves.


It is therefore within that context that I feel worried about the state of the nation today and I am not talking about the price of tomato but rather about the shrinking of civil liberties and the rising profile of the military/security agencies in issues that ordinarily should be dealt with by the police under democratic dispensations. What is particularly troubling is that those who should protect the people are acting in ways that remind many of us of those dark days under the late General Sani Abacha when impunity reigned supreme and the rights of citizens were whimsically trampled upon.

delpee:
Terrible era indeed! Glad that there's relative freedom today.

It is therefore within that context that I feel worried about the state of the nation today and I am not talking about the price of tomato but rather about the shrinking of civil liberties and the rising profile of the military/security agencies in issues that ordinarily should be dealt with by the police under democratic dispensations. What is particularly troubling is that those who should protect the people are acting in ways that remind many of us of those dark days under the late General Sani Abacha when impunity reigned supreme and the rights of citizens were whimsically trampled upon.

delpee:
Terrible era indeed! Glad that there's relative freedom today.

Sirmwill:
Is He is still alive?

Edit:It's a question

chrisxxx:
Dr Omenka. If Omenka injected one in those days just go home and write your wills. He was very good in administering poisonous injections.