Kill them young
By
I first heard of a Nigerian youth called Ovie Ojaovo Igbuku-Otu in 1983. He stood before Justice Babatunde Belgore of the Federal High Court, Lagos charged with treasonable felony. Classified as a capital offence, Igbuku-Otu if found guilty, could go for life imprisonment or receive the death sentence.
I had then wondered how it was possible for a youth copper serving at the NTA 7, Tejuosho to be charged with organising a coup to overthrow the Alhaji Shehu Shagari government. Has he troops or arms? Has he the connections or the money to organise such a project?
Igbuku-Otu had been arrested on Thursday, August 25, 1983, three months after he arrived in the country after a nine-year stay in the United States. He was the most unlikely coup plotter in the country.
He had been partly raised in Kwame Nkurmah’s Ghana and sent home as a kid. Later, he attended the Urhobo College in the old Bendel State. Passing out in 1971, he had headed for the Concordia University in Canada. Deported on October 27, 1972 for engaging in political activities, he left the country again, this time for the United States in January 1974.
A politically active and aggressive mind, Igbuku-Otu believed that "mediocrity is the bane of the world, it is thus not important whether a system is communist or capitalist, what matters now is the breed of men who run these systems. If a system is managed by mediocres, regardless of the expressed human potentials of the system, it will be badly managed, and if it is ran by good men, no matter how difficult the situations, things will work well".
Based on this, he believed that the Shagari administration was one run by mediocres; he expressed such beliefs during the NYSC orientation camp. Being an engaging debater, he argued with many, including the soldiers taking coppers in physical exercises at the camp. That was why within three months of his return to the country, he stood in the dock charged with treasonable felony.
Even in captivity, he refused to be cowed and was punished severely including being put in solitary confinement and thrown into a cell of lunatics. He told the story of one of such encounters at the Ikoyi Prisons.
"On March 31 (1984), in my cell, I saw another dead body. This time, the inmate simply died of hunger. The man died, he died and the prison authorities even refused in death to recognise the man’s right to a burial. I called on the duty warder to come and help remove the dead body. His response: "He spat on my face and I retaliated. I was dragged out of the cell and all the warders in the cell area gave me the most thorough beating of my life."
Meanwhile, the Shagari administration had been overthrown by generals on December 31, 1983. Igbuku-Otu’s belief was that "Shagari was overthrown by military generals because they wanted to forestall a revolution of the people."
With Shagari's ouster, he believed he would be immediately set free. So when the then new Internal Affairs Minister Brigadier Magoro visited the Ikoyi prisons in February 1984, Igbuku-Otu told him, "Sir, sir, sir, I am here on a charge of treasonable felony and since this government came to power, nothing had been said about me." He received assurances that his case would be investigated.
So he was quite hopeful freedom would come his way at his next court appearance on March 15, 1984. Rather, his case was adjourned to May 2.
On May 2, 1984, the 10th month of his arrest, the court discharged him and the secret security organisation immediately re-arrested him and he was back in detention. He again hoped for freedom on June 15, 1984 when he was taken to court, this time the secret agents shot Igbuku-Otu on the court premises on the claim that he was trying to escape.
He was taken to the Igbobi Hospital where the agents who shot him told hospital staff he was a mere criminal shot while trying to flee from justice. So he was ignored and he thought he would bleed to death. Luckily, the doctor on duty, Dr. Ayo Falope, an activist of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) would have none of this and instructed that the "criminal" be wheeled into theatre immediately for an operation to save his life.
After an eight-hour operation, Igbuku-Otu said "It was confirmed that my intestine was gone, part of other sensitive parts in me were gone too, in their place artificial ones were inserted."
The shooting and the sheer idiocy of continuing the trial of a felony case against a government already overthrown by the prosecuting authorities led to a public uproar. When he was brought back to court in August 1984, many lawyers led by Chief Gani Fawehinmi were in court to do battle on his behalf. But the General Muhammadu Buhari regime had also had enough of the case. So Justice Oguntade set him free.
When I joined the Vanguard the following year, Igbuku-Otu was working on her editorial board. He became a human rights activist. And in the evil Abacha regime days, he joined the Joint Action Committee of Nigeria (JACON) then led by Chief Abraham Adesanya.
In 1999, Igbuku-Otu pulled me out of a meeting and said "Owei! I hear you are from the Niger-Delta", I replied in the affirmative. "What! All these years, I had thought you were Yoruba! How come we have a person like you and you are not very active in our struggle?"
The last time I met Igbuku-Otu was in Port Harcourt on March 4, 2000. It was at the Conference of the Union of Niger Delta (UND) led by Senator David Dafinone. Igbuku-Otu was one of the organisers. He gave me his office address in Lagos and his telephone number. A few months later, he called the Vanguard in my absence.
On November 24, 2000 Eze Anaba, the Deputy News Editor in Vanguard called me, "Owei, do you know Igbuku-Otu?" Yes of course. "He is dead". What? "He was killed in his Ikeja home either by robbers or assassins." We never may know who murdered Igbuku-Otu and why. Igbuku-Otu’s prison memoirs is titled "Kill Them Young" and so do we.
Who killed Ovie Igbuku Otu????????????????????