From Kabiru Abdul Musa
In 1993, Omoyele Sowore, a Geography student of the University of Lagos was attacked by some group of students, he was beaten to a pulp, stripped naked and dragged round the whole school in broad day light. He later claimed, he was attacked by cultists due to his fight against cultism in the school, but our investigations have unveiled that this is a falsity, he actually lied about this incident.
Omoleye Sowore later sold this story to the Human Rights community, claiming he was attacked by cultists and injected with lead and he needed money to travel abroad to flush the lead out of his system. Due to his strongly persuasive nature, the story was bought and he eventually duped the unsuspecting Human Rights communities into releasing some funds for him, which he used in travelling to the United states for ‘treatment’. He is apparently still undergoing the treatment till date as he still lives and works in the United States, where he has established Sahara Reporters, an online News medium which he uses to work for opposition parties, in the guise of fighting corruption.
It is important to note that lead is typically absorbed into the bloodstream through the gastrointestinal tract (orally) or the lungs (breathing in dust that contains lead). According to his story, it wasn’t forced down his throat, it wasn’t forcefully inhaled, it was injected via a syringe, meaning that the lead had to be made soluble. However lead is not soluble in water, only soluble in very strong acid and alkaline both of which would have done visible tissue damage. But there were none of these as the man told a blatant boldfaced lie just to travel abroad, after he finished school and was roaming about jobless.
At the time this mob attack took place, Sowore was actually a Secret Cult-installed Student Union President whose tenure had elapsed. During his tenure as Student Union President, he used members of a particular cult group to harass the whole school in the guise of fighting cultism, kept a torture chamber where opposing cult members were dehumanised with hot iron, chained like criminals and beaten to a pulp with the connivance of the reigning cult group.
Student Unionism in Unilag at this time was very lucrative, thus Sowore was living large with his cult members and this earned him the nick name ‘Show boy’. There was an alarmingly large number of incessant rape stories. Many of the girls who were girlfriends of opposing cult groups were too scared to report, except a particular case which was actually carried out under the command of Mike Okiro, then Area Commander of Surulere.
Mr Okiro had recently given graphic details of how Sowore was being prosecuted for rape and this was when he got his US visa and left the country. It is imperative to also note that a few years ago the file section of Surulere Police Station was burnt by a mysterious fire incident.
The real story behind Sowore’s disgrace in school was the recently held Student Union elections. It was actually a race between Malcolm Ezekiel Fabiyi and Kuti Ezebiro, and Sowore was being pressured to handover to Malcolm who clearly won the elections. But Sowore had other plans. There was the new Student Union levy to be collected and he had his eyes on the money. He hired some thugs and some cultists and they launched an Anti-Cult campaign. This was actually after his tenure had expired and the hand-over period had also elapsed. Sowore and his gang visited the most minacious attack on Unilag. Students were abdcted in the middle of the night and chained to his detention facility. Young men were stripped naked in front of their female counterparts, while there were the ongoing incidents of rape at his detention facility. A dark cloud of fear pervaded the school environment.
This wasn’t the first time Unilag was having a Cult-installed Student Union President, but this was the first sit tight President. From the Presidency of the recently deceased Papa Chris (Odiakachukwu Jones-Nduka) where the confraternity had an alliance with the Presidency as well as key members of parliament, to the charismatic candidacy and subsequent leadership of Mayegun OJ / Red Drum, which was not amenable to control of the apex office, however the confraternity’s dominance was achieved at the parliament level. Anyone who was at the Education Faculty Votes Collation center witnessed the maneuvers of heavily armed individuals, actions which led his opponents, both students and student-cultists alike, to brand him a member of this particular confraternity for most of his tenure as Student Union President.
So when Sowore set up his interrogation and torture chambers in Jaja Hall, imported touts (non-student area boys) as part of his posse and commenced the selective abduction, torture and extortion of alleged secret cult members, none of the other fraternities dared touch him as it was assumed that it was an indirect war waged on the rest of the confraternities by his sponsors.
Incidentally there’s no known record of this lynch mob ever moving against members of this dominant confraternity that was working with Sowore. Even when students were being forced to sit on hot-plates, tied to metal bunks and flogged, burnt with hot boiling-rings, all in a bid to extract confessional statements, still nothing happened.
When things got to a head, all the usually warring confraternities summoned a meeting at ‘One In Town’ (OIT), a popular restaurant within the vicinity of the Unilag School main gate and demanded that the imposing confraternity call their President to order… and that was the first time it was confirmed that Sowore was actually working on his own, with a criminal sect of the confraternity and some imported touts. The whole school realised they were being taken for a ride. Sowore had turned tyrannical on his own. The falcon could no longer hear the falconer…
24 hours after the meeting, Sowore, accompanied by his killer squad was heading to Eni Njoku Hall on a mission to abduct and torture an innocent student whom he allegedly had misunderstandings with over a first year girl. It was while threatening this individual that he was surrounded, beaten, stripped naked and dragged to the freedom square podium (the first landing of the Makama Bida Hall Fire Escape).
Sowore’s supporters pelted his captors with stones and this gave him the opportunity to jump down from the podium and escape. He reinforced more things later on and they went on a vicious rampaging witch hunt. Several students were stripped naked, viciously beaten to a pulp and dumped all mashed-up, naked, bleeding…a number had defecated on themselves from the trauma.
The Student Union President elect and the student bodies fought back ferociously and finally overcame Sowore and his gang as they were chased out of school. Being wanted by the police for a rape case and hunted by Students, he then embraced the human rights community in Lagos and spun his lead injection story. His story went through, he got the money and headed to the United States.
Unable to find a job in the United states, he began work with a blogger, Jonathan Elendu of the famed Elendu Reporters. Realizing that they were dealing with high profile cases, he began to push Elendu into blackmailing people and also doing muck raking jobs for politicians. When Elendu refused to budge, he parted ways with him and set up Sahara Reporters.
Since then Sahara Reporters has constantly made money through Nigerian politicians whom they muck rake after being bribed by their opponents. A very clear case was that of Barrister Emeka Uguwonye who used to be a counsel at the Nigerian embassy in the United States. Barrister Emeka, a hazard trained lawyer had received thousands of petitions from Nigerians on character defamation and extortion from Sowore and his agents as far back as 2008. Emeka contacted sowore and warned him to desist from blackmailing people and Sowore saw this as an attempt to attack the reputation of his milk machine, Sahara Reporters. SR went head on, taking on Emeka and even dragging his sick sister into the mess by attempting to tarnish his family as people who had a lineage of mental problems. When Emeka side SR, SR used the story to sell themselves more, twisting the story to say that they were under attack from the Nigerian government.
When the story of an alleged $5 million dollars house in California given to Sowore by Tinubu surfaced, there was a serious altercation between Sowore and his partners who felt shortchanged since they didn’t know of this particular ‘deal’. SR partners like Rudolph Okonkowo and Adeola Fayehun have often complained to close relatives of how Sowore has shortchanged them in ‘deals’ and only declared peanuts. This allegation forced them to confront Sowore which forced Sowore to come out openly and deny the allegation, attacking President Jonathan in the attack and this seemed to sway the import of the allegation to other matters.
But further investigations have revealed that Sowore doesn’t only collect huge sums from opposition politicians, but actually owns a house in Maitama recently given to him by Governor Rotimi Aamechi. The house, a tastefully furnished duplex, houses Sowore’s mistress, a tall South African lady who mixes around Nigerian political elite and gives information to Sowore. This lady has dated prominent Nigerians like Atiku Abubakar, Adams Oshiomhole, Emir of Kano, the Chairman of PDP etc. These men do not know that she is actually Sowore’s mistress and gives him information which Sowore uses to extort from these men and lots of other Nigerians.
But presently, Sowore enjoys a very close relationship with Rotimi Amaechi who seems to be the biggest pay master at the moment and who seems to have more prospects for taking Sowore to limelight. The scheme is this; Rotimi Amaechi has almost gotten the endorsement of the Buhari campaign to run as his Vice Presidential candidate. Although Buhari is sceptical, Buhari handlers have been pumped with so many billions and they are insisting on Rotimi.
Rotimi’s insistence is having full knowledge of Buhari’s health status and age, he stands a chance of becoming Nigerian President and Sowore will be a part of the government. Omole Sowore has been accused by Emeka Ugwuonye of bribing and extorting from Farida Waziri, then EFCC Chairlady through Femi Babafemi, the EFCC spokes man. This was to get favourable reporting in the media since the EFCC chair was under pressure based on her Ibori connection and other matters which led to media to pot ray her in bad light.
