By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi
When he was the Military Administrator of Katsina State between 1993 to 1996, Navy Captain Emmanuel Acholonu, one day ordered the security agencies NOT to allow a press conference to be addressed by Dr. Bashir Kurfi to hold in the state.
And some operatives of the various security agencies went to town sealing off all available public, and some private places (there were no EVENT CENTRES at the time), as well as directing operators of public places to report any gathering of the press people in their premises to the Police or the State Security Service (better known as SSS) in the state.
The security operatives reported back to their bosses that everything had been taken care of, and assured that the press conference would never hold. But it HELD, at the headquarters of the state High Court, almost directly opposite the state Headquarters of the SSS.
The conference was to inform members of the Fourth Estate of The Realm, as named by the American Edmund Burke, that the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Network For Justice (NJF), which was then led by Dr. Bashir Kurfi, was going to SUE Katsina state over an alleged TORTURE of some four Government House domestic staff by the wife of the Military Administrator.
I was then the Katsina State Bureau Chief of the now rested The DEMOCRAT newspaper that published a screaming headline: ‘NJF TO SUE KATSINA STATE FOR TORTURE’, the government quickly dismissed the story and said it was concocted by the reporter. My ARREST was ordered by the Administrator, with the SSS taking up the challenge. The story was not ‘concocted’ as claimed by the government, because the press conference took place.
The actual ‘torture’ was closer to a BARBECUE, because the four victims (accused) were stripped down to their briefs, with hands tied on their backs, and rotated around a huge BURN-FIRE near the Presidential Quarters of the Government House (old).
To avoid being seen, and reported by the media, the wife of the Administrator, who was personally supervising the ‘torture’ (as the unfortunate incident came to be known), explicitly ordered the security men on duty at the gate of the Government House not to allow ‘THOSE STUPID PEOPLE TO ENTER’. The ‘Stupid People’ here, were meant to be the press men.
This tall recall is for the purpose of linking then, now and 2027. Dr. Kurfi is the common denominator (not the Mathematics type, though). The Academic doctor, (PhD) was the Chairman of the NFJ, and he is the Convener of the Katsina Security Community Initiative (KSCI), a group of like-minded people who came together to offer solutions to the intractable security problem that has constantly disturbed the peace in the the state, often with fatality.
The KSCI has successfully organised a meeting of some leading sons and daughters of Katsina State in Abuja, but the group’s attempt to organise a similar meeting in the state capital (Katsina) was abruptly stopped almost half way, by some sponsored political thugs, who appeared uninvited to cause trouble and chaos at the venue.
The thugs, who are among the same ones who abused, neglected and exploited by the present soulless regime, are the very ones used to botch the Katsina meeting of the KSCI and other concerned people in the state, over the killings, kidnappings, burnings, and raping by bandits.
Mostly drugged, they are also going to be used (as they are, all the times) during the 2027 general elections to snatch election boxes at the polling units, stuff empty boxes with already signed ballot papers at some secret places, and return same to the polling units, while they get cover from underpaid but overworked security personnel as they perform the dirty duty for their masters.
The masters will then be inaccessible to the sponsored drug addicts, until the time of another election, when they will again be given some stipends and lots of drugs for their dirty services.
May God make the gullible ones realise their worth, and resist any attempt to use them EVILLY, and then dump them until their services are needed again. If such ‘bad employers’ are so desperate, let them use THEIR BIOLOGICAL CHILDREN, SIBLINGS of their WIVES, or be GOOD LEADERS, for whom many citizens would die for.
Malumfashi writes from Katsina
