Re-BAD News: A Thanksgiving, An Update — Chiedu Ezeanah
Well, we thank God Chiedu Ezeanah is no longer in harm's way. It was a close call.
Details below from the poet
Good morning! Thanks. Just posted Below is my abridged version of the last Sunday incident.
Re-BAD News: A Thanksgiving,An Update
 |
| Chiedu Ezeanah |
I am out of harm's way. I am grateful to God. I also commend the vigilance of the two proactive estate policemen who preempted the two state security agents from effecting what is now commonplace news in our failed state that's sliding dangerously into a fascist pit where any dissenting voice can be flung into and forgotten by criminal politicians ruining us all.
I thank you all my friends and family here and beyond for all the notifications of reactions to my earlier post all praying for my safety, and also amplifying the issue by your unmistakable outrage at this latest instance of the assault on a citizen's right to free speech and freedom of movement.
Thank you very much for asking those unsettling questions of our misrulers.
II--'It Comes With The Territory'
It comes with the territory, that was how he related his recent similar experience to me on phone. Dayo Aiyetan, great friend and highly regarded investigative journalist, who had a hideous brush with the authorities over a week ago and was illegally detained for days alongside his lawyer and correspondent who investigated some police bosses for being involved in some compromising land transactions, would stoically not want to be too bothered by it to the point on losing focus on the onerous task at hand: a full and unyielding scrutiny on the governing class.
It comes with the territory: corrupt power must do everything to the death to suppress information on their corrupt rule. The journalist's job is to reveal the hidden and the suppressed story. This cat and mouse game can be deadly,sometimes. Recent examples:
1) The terrible case of the disappearance of Abubakar Idris Dadiyata, a journalist and social critic, who was declared missing over 5 years ago in Kaduna under Ex Governor El Rufai...
2) The PUNCH 6 May 2024: "Abductions, detentions: Echoes of Abacha-era media clampdown resound under Tinubu" ...The PUNCH named four journalists affected: Segun Olatunji, Kasaradu Aniagolu, Godwin Tsa and Daniel Ojukwu"
3) Premium Times 14 October 2019:"19 Journalists Attacked In Nigeria Within 9 Months"
Dayo, it's scary statistics. Yes, it does come with the territory of a failed state sliding dangerously into a fascist state ...
I can also recall my rather short time in Portharcourt during the heady days of the Ken Saro Wiwa struggle for minority rights and environmental justice in the Niger Delta under the despotic Abacha regime that finally had him murdered. I was Head of Eastern Bureau of the News Magazine and had this detached building Off Aba Road as office and home. One evening after eating at a restaurant nearby just about a few meters back to the office, a regular street fellow walked up to me and pleaded: "I am looking for CHIEF Ezeanah"... Of course, I knew they had come for me without knowing my face. No Facebook in 1994. So, I played along with the guy who was looking for CHIEF Ezeanah not Chiedu Ezeanah. I told him he had left the Chief's home by almost 2 kilometers: go right to the end of the road, the first turning left, then another turning to the left, left again and then ask for this very well known chief. He thanked me profusely. But I knew he was sent by some fellows watching from the shadows, so I went past my office before turning back to pack my stuff and hit the Lagos Park same night. Lagos here I come. Farewell to the great hunter of CHIEF Ezeanah.
III)Last Sunday Incident & Post-Incident Assessment
Last Sunday's incident was a bit different: the approach was to flatter me with their indecent compliment. Both female and male looking like a couple inside the small car, the female in the driver's seat. I was taking a walk around 3pm(?). The weather was good as it rained heavily earlier in the morning. As I left the Estate Security Gate, two policemen were seated by their vehicle having a banter. I greeted and walked past. About 20 meters away were my latest hunters. The indecent compliment: are you Wole Soyinka? You look like Wole Soyinka. Both of them mouthed their well-rehearsed chorus. I greeted them calmly and looked at them closely and said: I am Chiedu Ezeanah. I am sure I am the one you are looking for, not Wole Soyinka. And, I continued, may I have yours complimentary card please? The man didn't fall for that. He said no, they had none with them. That I could take their Whatsapp number. He called it out and I called the MTN line. It rang. I told them bye...and walked on. I checked the WhatsApp profile: it confirmed my suspicion. Even though I was apprehensive of imminent danger, I summoned up the pluck to get back to the two policemen after swiftly walking past "the hunters" still waiting for what inside the car? The two policemen accompanied me to see them. They asked for their identity cards. They refused to show it. They then told them to leave immediately. They refused. The policemen turned to me and confirmed my hunch and told me to delete their Whatsapp number immediately from my phone. The hunters heard and knocked off my phone, my phone was deactivated before I could delete their Whatsapp number. They drove off immediately. Who are you to chase them? Since then the phone is still dead, knocked off, deactivated, useless.
IV) Vigilance Is Still The Price Of Liberty
So, I moved swiftly to post "Bad News" even taking a risk by stating the address with my second phone long abandoned, now the super tool. Some of my friends did not know that I very recently changed address. Two of such friends landed alongside one who knew. Great friends, beloved brothers. We had a Post-Incident Assessment. It was decided that I should leave the house immediately and leave the two phones behind so that I would not be tracked by my hunters. Since then until early yesterday, Wednesday, I had been literally phoneless.
Secondly, it was decided that the incident be reported to the relevant authorities, which was also the earnest advice by a poet-lawyer friend. That too has been done.
Reading between the lines, these are a few of the reasons I cannot offer any more information until all the above have been processed and investigated by the relevant authorities. My friends also advised, finally, to keep away from making calls as they reasoned that anyone powerful enough to send State Security Agents to order this illegal action of spying on, deactivating a citizen's phone, and ultimately assault his rights to speech and movement by illegal abduction, journalist or not, could also track the second phone and wreak worse havoc. You could sense paranoir, for good reason.
It has been a physically draining and psychologically exacting time.
Beloved family and friends, do forgive me for not giving you an earlier update. I treaded on the path of caution against the agents of a State whose rogue head respects neither rules of law nor rules of decency. I saw all the missed calls and the numerous messages via Meta. Will surely respond to them after this update.
Vigilance is still the price we all have to pay for liberty in this our once cherished territory where every hue of lawlessness now swarms at us to blind us into submission...
Dem don fail and fall before dem start o...
E no go werk o...
Thank you ALL.
~Chiedu Ezeanah:
Well, we thank God Chiedu Ezeanah is no longer in harm's way. It was a close call.
Details below from the poet
Good morning! Thanks. Just posted Below is my abridged version of the last Sunday incident.
Re-BAD News: A Thanksgiving,An Update
|
| Chiedu Ezeanah |
I am out of harm's way. I am grateful to God. I also commend the vigilance of the two proactive estate policemen who preempted the two state security agents from effecting what is now commonplace news in our failed state that's sliding dangerously into a fascist pit where any dissenting voice can be flung into and forgotten by criminal politicians ruining us all.
I thank you all my friends and family here and beyond for all the notifications of reactions to my earlier post all praying for my safety, and also amplifying the issue by your unmistakable outrage at this latest instance of the assault on a citizen's right to free speech and freedom of movement.
Thank you very much for asking those unsettling questions of our misrulers.
II--'It Comes With The Territory'
It comes with the territory, that was how he related his recent similar experience to me on phone. Dayo Aiyetan, great friend and highly regarded investigative journalist, who had a hideous brush with the authorities over a week ago and was illegally detained for days alongside his lawyer and correspondent who investigated some police bosses for being involved in some compromising land transactions, would stoically not want to be too bothered by it to the point on losing focus on the onerous task at hand: a full and unyielding scrutiny on the governing class.
It comes with the territory: corrupt power must do everything to the death to suppress information on their corrupt rule. The journalist's job is to reveal the hidden and the suppressed story. This cat and mouse game can be deadly,sometimes. Recent examples:
1) The terrible case of the disappearance of Abubakar Idris Dadiyata, a journalist and social critic, who was declared missing over 5 years ago in Kaduna under Ex Governor El Rufai...
2) The PUNCH 6 May 2024: "Abductions, detentions: Echoes of Abacha-era media clampdown resound under Tinubu" ...The PUNCH named four journalists affected: Segun Olatunji, Kasaradu Aniagolu, Godwin Tsa and Daniel Ojukwu"
3) Premium Times 14 October 2019:"19 Journalists Attacked In Nigeria Within 9 Months"
Dayo, it's scary statistics. Yes, it does come with the territory of a failed state sliding dangerously into a fascist state ...
I can also recall my rather short time in Portharcourt during the heady days of the Ken Saro Wiwa struggle for minority rights and environmental justice in the Niger Delta under the despotic Abacha regime that finally had him murdered. I was Head of Eastern Bureau of the News Magazine and had this detached building Off Aba Road as office and home. One evening after eating at a restaurant nearby just about a few meters back to the office, a regular street fellow walked up to me and pleaded: "I am looking for CHIEF Ezeanah"... Of course, I knew they had come for me without knowing my face. No Facebook in 1994. So, I played along with the guy who was looking for CHIEF Ezeanah not Chiedu Ezeanah. I told him he had left the Chief's home by almost 2 kilometers: go right to the end of the road, the first turning left, then another turning to the left, left again and then ask for this very well known chief. He thanked me profusely. But I knew he was sent by some fellows watching from the shadows, so I went past my office before turning back to pack my stuff and hit the Lagos Park same night. Lagos here I come. Farewell to the great hunter of CHIEF Ezeanah.
III)Last Sunday Incident & Post-Incident Assessment
Last Sunday's incident was a bit different: the approach was to flatter me with their indecent compliment. Both female and male looking like a couple inside the small car, the female in the driver's seat. I was taking a walk around 3pm(?). The weather was good as it rained heavily earlier in the morning. As I left the Estate Security Gate, two policemen were seated by their vehicle having a banter. I greeted and walked past. About 20 meters away were my latest hunters. The indecent compliment: are you Wole Soyinka? You look like Wole Soyinka. Both of them mouthed their well-rehearsed chorus. I greeted them calmly and looked at them closely and said: I am Chiedu Ezeanah. I am sure I am the one you are looking for, not Wole Soyinka. And, I continued, may I have yours complimentary card please? The man didn't fall for that. He said no, they had none with them. That I could take their Whatsapp number. He called it out and I called the MTN line. It rang. I told them bye...and walked on. I checked the WhatsApp profile: it confirmed my suspicion. Even though I was apprehensive of imminent danger, I summoned up the pluck to get back to the two policemen after swiftly walking past "the hunters" still waiting for what inside the car? The two policemen accompanied me to see them. They asked for their identity cards. They refused to show it. They then told them to leave immediately. They refused. The policemen turned to me and confirmed my hunch and told me to delete their Whatsapp number immediately from my phone. The hunters heard and knocked off my phone, my phone was deactivated before I could delete their Whatsapp number. They drove off immediately. Who are you to chase them? Since then the phone is still dead, knocked off, deactivated, useless.
IV) Vigilance Is Still The Price Of Liberty
So, I moved swiftly to post "Bad News" even taking a risk by stating the address with my second phone long abandoned, now the super tool. Some of my friends did not know that I very recently changed address. Two of such friends landed alongside one who knew. Great friends, beloved brothers. We had a Post-Incident Assessment. It was decided that I should leave the house immediately and leave the two phones behind so that I would not be tracked by my hunters. Since then until early yesterday, Wednesday, I had been literally phoneless.
Secondly, it was decided that the incident be reported to the relevant authorities, which was also the earnest advice by a poet-lawyer friend. That too has been done.
Reading between the lines, these are a few of the reasons I cannot offer any more information until all the above have been processed and investigated by the relevant authorities. My friends also advised, finally, to keep away from making calls as they reasoned that anyone powerful enough to send State Security Agents to order this illegal action of spying on, deactivating a citizen's phone, and ultimately assault his rights to speech and movement by illegal abduction, journalist or not, could also track the second phone and wreak worse havoc. You could sense paranoir, for good reason.
It has been a physically draining and psychologically exacting time.
Beloved family and friends, do forgive me for not giving you an earlier update. I treaded on the path of caution against the agents of a State whose rogue head respects neither rules of law nor rules of decency. I saw all the missed calls and the numerous messages via Meta. Will surely respond to them after this update.
Vigilance is still the price we all have to pay for liberty in this our once cherished territory where every hue of lawlessness now swarms at us to blind us into submission...
Dem don fail and fall before dem start o...
E no go werk o...
Thank you ALL.
~Chiedu Ezeanah:
