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In a few days, we will step into another “ember” months. September is the first month of the “ember months” and it is almost here with us. “Ember” is the abbreviation coined to represent or describe the last four months of every year- namely September, October, November and December. While we brace up for the dawn of the ember months, it is pertinent to note that insecurity is still here with us, insecurity occasioned by the blood- chilling mayhem being unleashed on innocent citizens by armed non-state actors across the country, including separatist elements, jihadists such as Boko Haram officially known as Jama’at Ahl al-Sunna li al-Da’wa wa al-Jihad, Islamic State’s West Africa Province, ISWAP, armed fulani terror groups alias bandits, Ansaru, Lakurawa, Mahmuda and a host of others. Boko Haram insurgents which began the campaign of carnage in Northern Nigeria in 2008 parented these other splinter jihadist groups.All together, insurgents in the past 17 years have killed millions of innocent Nigerians for no justifiable reason.
Being the months prelude to Christmas and new year when a lot of road trips, festivities and heightened economic activities take place, there is every tendency for the armed gangs to step up their murderous activities during the ember months. Nigerians should therefore, gird their loins and take all necessary precautionary security measures to outwit them.
We must however, give kudos to the Nigerian Military for its tireless efforts to secure the country. Recently, there was the cheering news about the arrest, by security operatives, of the two most notorious and wanted terrorist commanders, Mahmud Muhammad Usman of Ansaru and Mahmud al-Nigeri of the Mahmuda group.The arrested terror leaders were responsible for the Kuje prison attack in 2022 that led to the escape of dozens of jailed Boko Haram members and an attack on the Niger uranium facility in 2013, among others.
Nigeria’s National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu who announced the arrests disclosed that the feat was made possible by the efforts of a joint security operation.
It is believed in security circles that arrests of the deadly terrorists will change for the better, the tide against violent sects in the North east. Their arrest was reminiscent of the arrest on 30th of July 2009, of Boko Haram founder, Mohammed Yusuf who would later be executed in a circumstances that are still hazy till date.
Instructively, the war against armed groups in the country is a drain on the country financial resources, it is a war that have needlessly cost the lives of gallant soldiers as well as those of innocent Nigerians. It is heartwarming to note, however, that despite the supreme sacrifices its men have continued to make in the fight against the insurgents, the Nigerian military remains undeterred and unbowed, committed and in high spirits. Sadly, foreign collaborators are also unrelenting in their shameless support to those who seek to murder their fellow countrymen and women for no clear- cut reason.
Credit must be given to our Northern neighbours, particularly Niger Republic, for their collaborative efforts in hunting down terrorists hurting us. Their efforts recently culminated in the elimination of notorious Boko Haram leader, Bakura. The terror kingpin was neutralised by the Nigerien army during a fierce battle at the lake Chad border area.
The arrest of Usman and Mahmud al-Nigeri which was strictly an intelligence-based operation has further raised the hopes of many security observers that Nigeria is winning the war and gradually coming to the end of insurgency. It is my candid view that all is needed now, more than ever before, is concerted synergy by all the security agencies for efficiency and robust results.There must be no loose ends.
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Recounting God’s mercy at 74 (2)
While working in the old Anambra state which comprised present day Enugu,Anambra and parts of Ebonyi states as Concord Newspaper Correspondent in the second republic, the police, one day, besieged my office on the orders of the Commissioner of Police, Johnson Odu.He had dispatched Mr Marvel Akpoyinbo, who would later retire as a Deputy Inspector-General of Police, DIG, after serving as Lagos state Comissioner of Police, to arrest and detained me over a front page story.I was handed over to Assistant Commissioner of Police, Nuhu Aliyu who was in-charge of the Anambra Criminal Investigation Department(CID). It was from there I was handed over to defunct Nigerian Security Organization (NSO) (which would later metamorphosed into the State Security Service,SSS and then Department of State Security DSS) for further investigations and interrogation. While under the captivity of these security agencies, I was brutally manhandled, tortured and dehumanised. My only crime was a publication, a front page publication in the National Concord with the title, “Underworld men to invade Anambra state”. The police and NSO interrogators persistently wanted me to reveal where I met the underworld men (armed robbers).After two weeks in an underground detention facility of the NSO, the National Concord publisher, the late Bashorun MkO Abiola and top Editorial Management Staff of the publication which included the late Dele Giwa who was the Editor Sunday Concord, Yakubu Mohammed Editor National Concord,Ray Ekpu and Ben Onyeachonam, the Manager, Community Concord came to seek for my release from then state governor, the late Chief C.C Onoh.
A few months after my ordeal in the hands of the Police and NSO, I was involved in another trouble with student cult members at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. They had removed the four tyres of my vehicle with the aim to set it ablaze before I was rescued by Professors Emeh Awah and Humphrey Nwosu- both now late and both incidentally served as the country’s electoral umpires-who secretly escorted me out of the university campus. My undoing was a front page story on National Concord: “Nine Professors petition Professor Frank Ndili”
The publication had attracted a visitation panel announced by the the then Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters, the late Major- General Tunde indiagbon. In 1985 I was transferred to Markudi, the Benue state capital, as the Chief Correspondent and barely two weeks into my posting there I ran into trouble with the authorities. I was driving to my hotel after the day job when I was flagged down by an unmarked police vehicle. And low and behold, it was the convoy of the military Governor, Air Commodore Jonah Jang.Commodore Jang instantly ordered my arrest. I was immediately arrested and handed me over to the Commissioner of Police, Mr parry Osayande.The Military Governor had ordered my arrest over what he had described as traffic offence. Of a truth, I had mistakenly blocked the convoy of the governor who did not use siren. Few weeks after my release I was again detained on the orders of the Governor. My offence? I had disguised as Bambbola, the “mad man” to ransack the dustbin at the governor’s office gate. Now, this is the full gist: Weeks earlier when I had accompanied my Publisher, Bashorun Abiola to visi the military Governor to request for an expanse of land for agricultural purposes, specifically to establish the Lola farms, I noticed how the Governor trashed petitions. While in the military Governor’s office I noticed that every petition he read, he would immediately squeez it and throw into a waste paper basket under his table. As we were exiting the government house I saw was big dustbin and instantly the crime, undercover reporter in me took over and I decided that I would always disguise as a babambola to stormed the dustbin site! Days later, acting like a mentally deranged man, I stormed the dustbin site twice and carted away hundreds of the squeezed and discarded documents. I would take them home , straighthened the papers and extracted exclusive news for publication. For over a month my byline graced the front page of the Concord newspaper! Unfortunately on my third trip, I was unlucky as I was exposed and subsequently arrested!
In another development, a few months into 1986, I was arrested for exposing a theft of a computer in the office of the Arny brigade Commander in Makurdi, Musa Bamiyi( now late) who would later rise to the rank of Major-General and become the DG of NDLEA. The brigade Commander had ordered my arrest immediately the National Concord published the computer theft in his office. I was picked up in my office and escorted to his office by military police officers. I was however, later released after two days in detention. Apart from other minor hazards I encountered in Benue state in the cause of my investigative journalism career, my job also brought me face to face with three very revered traditional rulers in the state; they had accused me of using the Community Concord newspaper against their tradition. Let me state here that my journalistic activities in Benue state greatly enhanced the popularity and visibility of Concord newspaper there. However, my stay in Benue was cut short in 1987 when the Concord management transferred me to Calabar, the Cross River state capital. Sadly, as I was conveying my luggage in a van from Markudi to Cal8, my gorilla which I kept as a pet jumped out of the moving vehicle and was crushed, dying instantly. Before I could settle down in Calabar, cross boarder armed robbers attacked and stole my car from my house at Mbukpa in Calabar South local government area but three of them were later apprehended by anti- robbery patrol team at the boarder between Nigeria and Cameroon while trying to move the car across the boarder to Cameroon.One of the robbers was shot dead the other two were arrested and prosecuted.
The anti robbery patrol team was under the leadership of supol Alozie Ogugbaja who was later to become the Police Public Relation Officer, PPRO of the Lagos state Police Command where he got into trouble with the Ibrahim Babangida military junta and was dismissed from the police.
After the robbery incident, unknown gunmen later traced me to my house and removed all the four car tyres of my car. As an external student of the University of Calabar, cultists wrote me a warning letter which they dropped on the windscreen of my car, warning me to desist from writing negative news about the institution. Not long after, I was elevated to the position of an Assistant News Editor and transferred back to Lagos.As if security were eagerly awaiting my arrival in Lagos, a few years after my relocation, DSS operatives arrested and detained me at Besam police station along Ikeja Airport Road for publishing, selling and circulating a book tiltled “The Proverbs of MKO Abiola”.I was later transferred to the DSS headquarters were I was interrogated and cautioned by one of the top operatives, Denise Amachree, to stop the sales of the book.
It has indeed been God’s mercy. In all the visctidutes and hazards I encountered in the course of my journalism career, God’s mercy, love and grace kept me going, even to this age. And I’m eternally, super grateful to Him! (concluded)
Security File wishes to congratulate one of our ardent readers, Femi Babafemi, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) Director ,Media & Advocacy and former spokesman of EFCC ,on his forthcoming birthday, 31st of August, 2025. Security File wishes you all the best .
