DSS accused me of being a Biafran holding Nigerian passport – Onumah

Journalist and author of ‘We are all Biafrans,’ Chido
Onumah, who was recently arrested and detained by the Department of
State Services in Abuja, relives the encounter in this interview
with ADELANI ADEPEGBA

How did you feel when
you were accosted by the DSS at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International
Airport in Abuja?

Although I visited Spain, I had come in from Gothenburg in
Sweden. I flew from Gothenburg to Frankfurt and from there to
Abuja. It was a long trip and I was really tired. I simply wanted
to get home and have some rest. A few friends of mine were visiting
Nigeria from Accra, Ghana and I needed to be with them. We had
scheduled a dinner for that Sunday. So it was quite shocking that I
couldn’t make it.

After such a long flight, I was accosted by DSS operatives and
made to wait for two hours in their office at the airport and
another four hours at their headquarters in Abuja for something I
think it was not worth the trouble they put me to. At the end of
the day, it turned out to be about the inscription on the T-shirt
that I was wearing, which was the title of my book, ‘We are all
Biafrans.’

I still don’t know exactly what they wanted to achieve by
arresting me.

Initially, they took me to their office and the first question
the officer there asked me was: “You are a Biafran, why do you have
a Nigerian passport?” I replied, “I beg your pardon, I’m a Nigerian
and that is why I have a Nigerian passport. There is no country
like Biafra. So I can’t possibly hold a Biafran passport.”

The man said, “But that’s not what is written on your shirt.”
And I told him that ‘We are all Biafrans’ is the title of my
book.

Do you find this troubling?

Yes, it was quite troubling. After the encounter, what bothered
me was the restriction of press freedom and the rights of Nigerians
to move around and to associate with other people. So we moved from
worrying about who you meet with, what kind of people you associate
with, whether you are able to go to a park to congregate and have a
conversation or not, as well as what you write, to security
agencies accosting you for what you are carrying, what kind of
phone you are using and what you are wearing. In the end, he took
the shirt from me and insisted that I can’t wear it ever again.

How do you see the DSS’s action?

I see it as an infringement on my fundamental rights. It’s not
about me really; it could be any other person and the way forward.
Anyone could be arrested if they think that what you are wearing is
offensive. They said something to the effect that they got a
tip-off from some fellow passengers on the same plane that brought
me to Nigeria, who feared that there was a plan to disturb the
peace and that I was going to be part of it. Based on their press
release, they said they were trying to protect me because some
people had planned to attack me. Mentally I checked their claims,
wondering why anybody would plan to attack me. I told them that I
had worn the T-shirt for three years and they were shocked.

What does this say about the DSS’
intelligence-gathering capability?

The incident called to question the so-called intelligence of
the intelligence agency. This book has been out for three years and
the T-shirt was first worn on the day the book was launched, which
was on May 30, 2016.

I wear this T-shirt regularly. In fact, it has become like a
national dress to me. I wear it whenever I am travelling out of the
country and whenever I am coming back. Most weekends, that’s what I
wear, over a pair of jeans trousers, to my office. When they heard
this, my interrogators feigned surprise, as if they didn’t know in
the first place.

What I found quite strange was the fact that they couldn’t link
the book to the T-shirt. I told them several times that the
inscription on the shirt was the title of my book, but it didn’t
resonate with them. This got me wondering. When the book was
launched in 2016, some prominent Nigerians, including former Vice
President Atiku Abubakar, who was the special guest of honour,
attended the event. Almost all the major national newspapers had
the story on their front pages. I was surprised that an
organisation like the DSS didn’t have any information on the
event.

If the DSS operatives had any knowledge of the book, perhaps,
they wouldn’t have asked me some of the questions they were asking.
What I learnt from their reactions is that they had concluded that
I was an ‘anarchist’ who had arrived in the country to foment
trouble by wearing the T-shirt. As a result, they had already
decided to stop me by any means necessary.

Do you think they saw you as a member of IPOB or
MASSOB?

That is the impression because one of them said to me, “Why we
are trying to protect you is because if you wear the shirt into
town, somebody would attack you and there would be reprisal from
the Biafran people and the whole city would go up in flames.” I
told him that I was neither a Biafran nor a sympathiser of Biafra
and I didn’t belong to MASSOB.

In fact, both MASSOB and IPOB people see me as their sworn enemy
because they think my book doesn’t propagate their ideals and
ideas. So for me, mixing with them was really uncalled for. There
is a sense in which I think that by seeing me in that T-shirt, they
believed I was a supporter of IPOB. I spent a long time trying to
convince them that they were wrong.

Did DSS operatives try to intimidate or wear you
down psychologically?

No, they didn’t. I am a veteran of this process. I am used to
the DSS.  I have been a guest of the DSS, even as a student of
the University of Calabar. As a journalist, I have had a run-in
with the operatives of the agency. So I know the drill. I know how
they operate.

When they asked me to follow them at the airport, I didn’t
resist or create a scene. I simply went with them and when I got
into the room, I started reading a book and waited for them to ask
their questions. Because of the way I conducted myself, perhaps,
they didn’t intimidate me. They didn’t raise their voice or shout
at me. We only disagreed. They would raise a point and I would say
no, I don’t think that is right.

Do you suspect that your detention and interrogation
might be part of a larger plan to silence critics of the present
government?

There is no doubt about that, but the other dangerous aspect of
this, which I think people need to pay attention to, is that the
serious disconnect between the so-called security agencies and the
public they were supposed to serve almost borders on paranoia.

You pride yourself as the foremost security agency in the
country, but you need to have intelligence, you need to do your
research, have background information. You can’t just go around
picking up people randomly and denying them their fundamental
rights in the name of maintaining law and order. You simply invoked
your constitutional responsibility to maintain law and order when
there is no basis for such arrest. So we have to worry not just
about what we write or say, but also what we wear.

In this case, there was really no basis for arresting me. I am
not guilty of what they were trying to accuse me of. I don’t
support IPOB, I don’t support the agitation for Biafra and I don’t
belong to any of those fringe groups seeking dismemberment of the
country. So there was no basis for taking me in for
questioning.

What is the wider implication of your encounter with
the DSS for the larger civil society?

Well again, it just calls for vigilance. Part of it was
displayed on Sunday. I really commend Nigerians, especially young
Nigerians on social media. The fact that people rallied round and
sent out lot of tweets contributed to my release. They (DSS) were
willing to keep me till Monday, but they were under severe
pressure. They buckled and started talking to me until we reached
an agreement and understanding.

Did you feel a sense of protection when the
officials claimed they brought you to their office because some
people were planning to attack you for wearing the
T-shirt?

No, I didn’t believe their claim and I let them know it. I told
them that I had been putting on the T-shirt for three years and
nobody had ever questioned me. They kept trying to what they w
explain what they were doing, but I didn’t think it had anything to
do with the fact that the present Federal Government cares about
its citizens.

Could there be a nexus between your arrest and
#RevolutionNow coordinator, Omoyele Sowore’s
ordeal?

Maybe not directly, but in the broader picture of things, it is
not just about me or Sowore; it is the larger problem of wanting to
control the thought process of people so as to stop them from
expressing themselves.

I was responding to their questions and I queried why, in this
era, journalists are being detained and asked them to show pictures
on their phones and other flimsy reasons for the detention of
journalists.

Did they at any time search your phone and other
personal effects?

I don’t know. They had the phone in their possession. I can’t
say what they did with it. I have not really had time to check it.
They had my passport and went through it.

Do you think they bugged your
phone?

Well, that’s possible. I am a public person and there is really
nothing I can say to someone in private that I can’t repeat in
public. That (bugging of my phone) is a possibility, but it is not
something I’m particularly worried about.

Do you agree with Amnesty International’s position
that civil liberty is at risk in the country?

I think it is. I mentioned my own case, Sowore’s trial and the
detention of James Ebiri for two years. Other people have been
being detained by security officials for posting things against
state governors on social media. And if the space, in terms of
civil liberty, is really shrinking, then citizens need to rise and
do something about it. Those who try to limit other people’s
liberty will continue to do so unless the people say ‘enough is
enough, we can’t take this anymore.’ If they don’t do that, those
who seek to oppress them and limit their rights will have a field
day.

Will your experience discourage you from further
championing the cause of civil liberty in the
country?

No, it will not. I have a new book that will put in proper
perspective the crises we have been facing in the last five years
or so, including the issue of revolution. Nothing is going to stop
me.

So, you believe we need a revolution in the
country?

I think it is important, but the nature of the revolution is
what we have to sit down and discuss. We do need a revolution. We
need to have a radical transformation of the Nigerian society. That
is the only way we can move forward as a nation.

Culled from Punch