A former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, says he was protected by Boko Haram suspects during his four-day detention at Kuje Prison.
Fani-Kayode said this in an article titled, ‘Head bloodied but not bowed and the ascension of President-Elect Donald Trump’ on Wednesday.
The ex-minister said he spent over two weeks in the underground cell of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission without being interrogated.
He said he was then transferred to Kuje Prison where he was kept in a cell along with terrorists.
Fani-Kayode said, “At Kuje I was kept in the terrorist wing of the prison which was built by the British government specifically for Boko Haram convicts and suspects. There were 47 of them in the facility and I was with them throughout. These were tough, disciplined, hardened, surprisingly well-educated and intimidating men.
“This was a frightful place and those that were locked up there were very dangerous and frightful people yet thankfully the Lord went ahead of me.
“The single cells, though small, were clean, well-ventilated, dry and very neat. The inmates were surprisingly very kind and friendly towards me and turned out to be my best friends and bodyguards whenever I toured the other parts of the prison.
“Most of those men were not Boko Haram killers but had been falsely accused, tortured and just dumped into prison and I felt nothing but pain and sorrow when I heard their stories.”
Fani-Kayode said during his time at the prison, he met with the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, who has been in detention for over a year.
He said they spoke for about three hours and they were protected by inmates during the meeting.
The ex-minister added, “When I went to visit the great and brilliant freedom fighter, Nnamdi Kanu, who is the leader of IPOB and easily the most courageous, powerful and credible Igbo leader in Nigeria today in his cell we had a very instructive and long discussion.
“I had never met Nnamdi before and I was amazed at his depth of knowledge, his immense courage and his deep convictions. There is no doubt in my mind that that man is going places and in him the Igbo have an Ojukwu and a Nnamdi Azikiwe all rolled into one. He is destined for greatness.
“My Boko Haram friends accompanied me to that meeting, drew a 10-man security cordon around me when we entered the general population of the prison and waited outside as Nnamdi and I spoke for almost three hours.”
Yet in all this I am not moved and neither can I ever be broken or silenced because, like the biblical Job, “I know that my Redeemer liveth”.
Like Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “my head is bloodied but not bowed” and “I shall fight until the flesh is hacked from my bones”. And as that fight and struggle unfolds and unwinds I take solace in the powerful and beautiful words of the Victorian poet William Ernest Henley in my favourite poem titled ‘Invictus’ which was written in 1875. He wrote,
“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul”.
Like Nelson Mandela did at Robben Island prison every day for 26 years, I recited that poem three times a day on each and every day of my total of 90 days detention this year. And if I am arrested and detained again by the EFCC or any of President Buhari’s other numerous security or intelligence agencies I will continue to recite it. I have no fear of what men or satan can do to me and I trust and have faith in the God that I serve.
Having explained my absence for the few weeks with this appetiser permit me get to the meat of it and now serve the main dish of this contribution.
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