Ladi Olorunyomi: Thrice detained by Generals, exile was only option, By Owei Lakemfa

She said the decision to go into exile became inevitable for her because the invasions by the military thugs were beginning to affect the children. For instance, the older child had begun to have nightmares about a gunman throwing him into a cell and that he was unable to get out… Also, she could not explain to them why their father never came home or why armed soldiers would be breaking into their home. She told me: “At the end of the day, for their sakes, the option open to us was exile.”

The first detention of Ladi Olorunyomi was in 1993 under the Babangida military regime. That regime had annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential election, and was on rampage. She was a journalist, and journalism was a high risk profession during the military regimes. She was also a feminist, pro-democracy and human rights activist. But her detention had nothing to do with any of these. She was merely a hostage, seized by the authorities in order to pressurise her husband, the conscientious journalist, Dapo Olorunyomi, to give himself up.

Ladi had just had a baby in 1993 when they came for her. She refused to leave baby, Aramide, behind. So, they were both carted into detention.

However, her longest spell in detention was in the notorious cells of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), in Apapa, Lagos, where some detainees never left alive.

The Abacha junta has been the most vicious in Nigerian history. Nigerians were simply plugged from the streets. Public places, including buses conveying soldiers, were bombed by the regime. Also, the regime had on 10 November, 1995, despite international appeals, hung famous writer, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and eight fellow environmentalists. By 1996, a number of journalists were in prison, including Kunle Ajibade, Mrs Chris Anyanwu, George Mbah and Ben Charles-Obi. All four had been sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly being “accessories after the fact of treason”. One of the journalists detained, Bagauda Kaltho of The News, never returned.

Early in 1997, Ladi came to my home in Lagos with the news that a mutual friend, Lemi Gbolahan, a reserved journalist who had just returned from London after over a decade sojourn, had been picked up by the notorious DMI goons. She reasoned that if the quiet Lemi, who was not known as a pro-democracy campaigner, could be arrested, then I, who was well known to the security services and military, was not safe. She urged me to leave the country. I told her, I would consider her advice.

She also talked about the psychological torture they subjected detainees to. It was drilled into all detainees, including political ones, that for them to be brought to the DMI, they must be criminals. So they were treated like convicted criminals with no rights, including to life. That way, detainees were worn out. She said: “When I got to understand that was what they were doing, I had to protect my mind against that onslaught.”

Nothing prepared us for what happened next. On Thursday, 20 March, 1997, the DMI invaded her home, allegedly searching for her husband whom they knew had taken political asylum in the United States. She was released without charge on 6 May, 1997; that is after 68 days in detention.

It was a harrowing experience for her, not just because her husband had been forced into exile and her children, Kitan, 7 and Aramide, 4, were deprived of parental care and had to stop schooling. It also had to do with the conditions under which she was detained. There was no bed, so she slept on a table, chair or on the floor. She had no access to a bathroom. So, when permitted to take a bath, she had to do so in the open, while it was still dark. She was fed starvation rations. Ladi told herself that despite the horrible conditions, she could not afford to fall sick because there was not even a basic health facility around. Fellow detainees who fell sick had to find ways of being sent money to buy drugs or were left to their fate. There was a soldier-doctor who was supposed to visit once a week, but she never saw him.

She witnessed a detainee who emaciated badly and became so sick that he could no longer speak and was too weak to walk. When it was clear the man was about to die, the DMI contacted his relatives to come and carry him away, with a warning that once he recovered, he must be brought back to detention!

Ladi was one of the very few detainees who were only interrogated but not tortured. However, torture, which the DMI operatives called “drilling”, was common place. Detainees were so battered that they were ready to sign any document or confess to crimes they never committed. One of the days she told me she would never forget was that of the torture of two friends from about 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., until they turned on each other, truly or falsely, accusing themselves of crimes.

She also talked about the psychological torture they subjected detainees to. It was drilled into all detainees, including political ones, that for them to be brought to the DMI, they must be criminals. So they were treated like convicted criminals with no rights, including to life. That way, detainees were worn out. She said: “When I got to understand that was what they were doing, I had to protect my mind against that onslaught.”

Six days after her last release, she was getting the family ready for bed when an anonymous caller told her that the DMI bullies were coming that night, and advised her not to sleep in the house. She picked the kids and her sisters who were living with her, and slipped away on the night of that Sunday, 9 November, 1997. She took the family to a friend’s place.

On 3 November, 1997, the DMI operatives, led by a Major Mumuni, alias Bashir, and Captain Daramola, invaded her home again. The armed soldiers arrived at 12.30 a.m., made a lot of noise like hyenas, jumped the fence, broke down her door and entered her home. She was seized at about 1. am. They took her to her husband’s abandoned office, then around Ikeja, the Lagos State capital, and finally to their Apapa office three hours after her abduction. Since they left no traces nor any record, the military operatives could easily have eliminated her and then denied that they ever abducted her.

This time, they said they were searching for Bayo Onanuga, one of her husband’s colleagues, as if she were the custodian of his colleagues. She was released at about 3 p.m. and ordered to report daily at the DMI. She was also told the soldiers could come to her home anytime, and was instructed to open the door whenever they came. The DMI also seized her bunch of keys for 48 hours, probably to duplicate them.

Six days after her last release, she was getting the family ready for bed when an anonymous caller told her that the DMI bullies were coming that night, and advised her not to sleep in the house. She picked the kids and her sisters who were living with her, and slipped away on the night of that Sunday, 9 November, 1997. She took the family to a friend’s place. Then slipped through the border with Benin Republic to take temporary shelter in Accra, Ghana, before taking political asylum in the United States, where she has lived with her family for the past 27 years.

She said the decision to go into exile became inevitable for her because the invasions by the military thugs were beginning to affect the children. For instance, the older child had begun to have nightmares about a gunman throwing him into a cell and that he was unable to get out.

Also, she could not explain to them why their father never came home or why armed soldiers would be breaking into their home. She told me: “At the end of the day, for their sakes, the option open to us was exile.”

Owei Lakemfa, a former secretary general of African workers, is a human rights activist, journalist and author.