By Taiwo Otitolaye.
We popularly call him BRK. Conscious, unperturbed, courageous and ever determined to carry out to the letters what the Movement’s organ decided.
The struggle was his life!!!
This particular arrest was in 1995. He was eventually charged accessory to a phantom coup orchestrated by the late maximum dark goggle General Sanni Abacha, and his collaborators.
Earlier before his arrest, Shehu SANNI has been picked up in Kaduna on the same trump up charges.
I escaped Patrick Aziza’s panel just by five (5) minutes.
It was 8am on a Wednesday morning, I had woken up to take my breakfast after my bath in a “SAFE HOUSE”. This was the 5th safe house under Abacha’s military junta.
The previous safe houses have been discovered by the state security services (SSS). Like a tramp, I moved from place to place, with no certainly what the next hour will be.
The Campaign for Democracy (CD) was the PLÀTFORM that provided leadership to the Nigerian people through that dark era.
The military junta of Abacha wanted to cripple the CD for it’s anti-military campaigns and nationwide protests which made that regime an International leprositic dictatorial hegemony. So, the leadership of CD was a target for that regime.
As one of the National Vice Chairman under Beko, my role was very prominent in terms of mobilization, street protests, press statements and interviews. I vividly remember William Eagles of the Voice of America (VOA); I was his regular guest on VOA.
The peak of my travails was when I launched the Campaign on the VOA to persuade buyers of our crude oil to henceforth deposit proceeds from the oil into ESCROW ACCOUNTS.
The Abacha government became a rampager. It hunted me with all her might and security arsenal.
On this particular Wednesday, the combined team of SSS, soldiers, Airforce personnel, police that came to my safe house were from Abuja. The thought was that the Kwara axis have compromised the instructions to bring me dead or alive to Abuja.
My previous arrests were less dramatic. But this time, it was one of the darkest hour.
Now, my sister, brothers, friends and some neighbours have been arrested in lieu of me. Some spent two weeks in detentions while my sister was a regular at the State Security Services detention facilities, until she was smuggled out of Kwara State to another State.
After my bath, I sat down to do the Spiritual Exercises of ECK. And instantly, my Inner Master, the MAHANTA, the Living ECKMASTER with an urgent instruction said “LEAVE THIS HOUSE NOW!!!
My Inner Communication with the Master were constant by then because it was the most direct and easiest way to get information, and stay safe; there was no mobile phone that period in history.
I had a mobile bag always packed ready for such emergencies. I took the bag and SCALED THE BACK FENCE. Because the urgency attached by my INNER MASTER was so succinct.
Unknown to me, as I was scaling the back fence, the combined forces had already condoned the neighborhood. Their intelligence report of my location was so exact. They were very sure that nothing would stop my arrest this time.
I moved with the dexterity of light far away from that environment. I followed the Instructions of the Inner Master.
I made contacts with my Comrades both in Kwara and Lagos through landline phone to intimate them of development. That evening, I listened to Radio Kudirat broadcast my narrow escape.
I join millions to celebrate the eventful and contributive role of Beko. He along with other Revolutionary Leaders, Cadres, masses, were the heroes, and heroines of our COLLECTIVE STRUGGLES.
Giving all the Struggles of that era, and before some of us were born; and the state of things; it is evident that the house (SYSTEM) called Nigeria is beyond redemption.
The lives of people no longer have meaning. Several hundreds are dying daily, several hundreds are been kidnapped daily, several hundreds of women are becoming widows, several hundreds of women are being raped daily, several hundreds of children are becoming orphans. There’s ABJECT POVERTY IN THE LAND with no solution in sight.
No matter what, these orgies shall continue until the various nations within Nigeria decides their fate to unbundle the fraud of 1914 when several diverse nationalities were coerced by the British overlords without their consent.
