Nigeria drifts towards Bangladesh where 20 students murdered a govt critic
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Government critics in Nigeria can be hunted and killed by fellow citizens who are bribed by those in power to play hatchet men, a gory tale from Bangladesh shows.
Bangladesh is a democracy, and so does Nigeria claim to be, but power in the wrong hands can be abused regardless of the system of government.
“Life has lost its value under Buhari’s Nigeria,” Daily Trust wrote in an editorial on December 12, a surprise take from a “Northern” newspaper that is supposed to support Muhammadu Buhari.
Buhari’s spokesman and one of his false prophets, Garba Shehu, issued a statement the same day which put a gloss on the stench of Buhari’s incompetence and dismissed the editorial as “lurid political journalism”, per reporting by Vanguard.
Bangladesh has just sentenced 20 university students to death for the murder in 2019 of a fellow student who criticised the government on social media.
The judgment is a world record for mass death sentences for students.
The battered body of Abrar Fahad, 21, was found in his dormitory hours after he wrote a Facebook post slamming Prime Minister Hasina Wazed for signing a water-sharing deal with India.
Nigeria has descended into the abyss where Abuja and state governments bribe citizens to intimidate and harass fellow citizens, even when the attackers themselves know that rights activism benefits them and all other citizens.
This happened after the report of the Lagos EndSars panel was leaked on November 15 so that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu would not sweep it under the carpet.
Kamsiyochukwu Ibeh, one of the witnesses who testified at the panel, was inflicted with severe machete wounds on November 21. The attackers told her they would kill her because she testified before the panel.
A member of the panel, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa SAN, also raised the alarm on November 22 that his life was being threatened by government agents because of his outspokenness about the panel report.
Adegboruwa said people should hold the government responsible if anything should happen to him.
Sahara Reporters publisher Omoyele Sowore – a critic of Buhari – was attacked by hoodlums on the premises of an Abuja High Court on December 2 in the presence of security agents who did not restrain the assailants.
Sowore said he was at the court to witness the trial of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu when he was attacked by “thugs and hoodlums” who wielded “dangerous objects”.
“I had been briefed that these persons were mobilised by Nigeria’s secret police known as the DSS. During my last appearance in court for the same purpose, they physically attacked me while the DSS and police pushed me back to them, this was captured on tape,” he said.
Buhari’s false prophets dress him up as an angel. The truth, however, is that he is a camelion, a coward, and a law breaker who acts with impunity. Besides his incompetence and cruelty, he and his officials do not obey court judgments.
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has threatened Buhari with contempt of court proceedings.
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Related articles:
Adegboruwa says govt agents after him over EndSARS report
Sowore mourns brother, says killing him won’t delay day of justice for perpetrators
SERAP sues Buhari over his plan to spy on social media
SERAP mulls contempt of court proceedings against Buhari
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Fahad killed by student members of the ruling party
AFP reports that Fahad was beaten with a cricket bat and other blunt objects for six hours by 25 fellow students who were members of the ruling Awami League’s student wing, the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL).
“I am happy with the verdict,” Fahad’s father Barkat Ullah told reporters outside court after the sentencing. “I hope the punishments will be served soon.”
The remaining five perpetrators were handed life imprisonment.
Chief prosecutor Mohammad Abu Abdullah Bhuiyuan told AFP that the murder was premeditated.
All those given death sentences were between 20 and 22 years old at the time of the murder and attended the elite Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology alongside Fahad.
Three of the defendants are still at large while the rest were in the courtroom.
Faruque Ahmed, a lawyer for the defendants, said the sentence would be appealed.
“I am very disappointed at the verdict. It is not fair,” he told AFP.
“They are young men and some of the best students of the country. They were sentenced to death despite no proper evidence against some of them.”
Highest punishment
Fahad had put up a post on Facebook that went viral hours before his death.
In it, he criticised the government for signing an accord that allowed India to take water from a river that lies on the boundary the two countries share.
Fahad had been seen – in leaked CCTV footage that went viral on social media – walking into a dormitory with some BCL activists.
About six hours later, his body was carried out by the students and laid on the ground.
Protests in the days after Fahad’s murder called for the attackers to be harshly punished and for the BCL to be banned.
Hasina vowed soon afterwards that the killers would get the “highest punishment.”
The BCL has earned notoriety in recent years after some of its members were accused of killing, violence and extortion.
In 2018, its members allegedly used violence to suppress a major anti-government student protest.
Those rallies were sparked by anger over road safety after a student was killed by a speeding bus.
Death sentences are common in Bangladesh with hundreds of people on death row. All executions are by hanging, a legacy of the British colonial era.
In August, a court sentenced six Islamist extremists to death for the murders of two gay rights activists.
Sixteen people were handed the death penalty in 2019 for burning alive a 19-year-old student who accused her seminary’s head teacher of sexual harassment.