Activist, Harrison Gwamnishu, has exposed a prayer House inside Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministry in Okija, Anambra state, where men and women said to be mentally unstable are allegedly being held against their will In a post shared on his Instagram page, Harrison said he and his team visited the place after receiving a distress call from one of the occupants, Ekene, who has been in chains for the past two years.
He said Ekene claimed that his mum and Uncle brought him to the facility after denying him access to his travel documents.According to Harrison, the place accommodates more than 100 people.
He wrote;
”This is not a Prison yard or Psychiatric rehabilitation Centre.The boy we met in the church told us it’s a prayer house.NO MEDICAL TREATMENT NO MEDICAL DOCTOR ON SIGHT.
This place is situated within Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries OKIJA, Anambra State.Last two weeks, we received a distress call from one Ekene and today we were at Okija to verify his story.
Ekene told us he’s been chained in this detention for the past two years and that his mother and uncle denied him access to his travelling document and brought him to Okija.
We have reached out to Anambra Police Command and DPO Okija but they could not assist us rescue Ekene due to lack of man power.
We are putting up this video and hoping Ekene and others will be heard and the truth about their situations revealed.
PLEASE TAG @mfm_ministries @official_dkolukoya and @ccsoludo to investigate this facility.
THIS PLACE IS CURRENTLY ACCOMODATING MORE THAN 100 PERSONS.
A Kaduna-based activist, Prof. Suleiman Dansoko, has advised President Muhammadu Buhari not to be anxious to leave office until he cleans all the mess he created for Nigeria.
President Buhari had told party supporters, who paid him Sallah homage in Daura last week, that governance is too tough and he is eager to hand over.
Reacting on Friday, Dansoko, who was formally Head of Department, Bayero University Kano, but now a social activist and political analyst told President Buhari that if he is feeling the heat, Nigerians are only depending on God’s grace to survive.
He said the president should put everything right just the way he met things in 2015 before stepping out of Aso Rock.
According to him, there is no father that will tell his children that he cannot provide their needs, or that he will run out of the home because he faces tough times.
“Please, Mr. President, we all welcome all your team; bandits’attack, killing, hunger, inflation, sickness, unemployment, sacking from Governnent jobs. But, before you go, do your possible best, to settle them, let them leave before you go. Don’t leave any of your team members behind,” he said.
According to him, even though, they all complained about the previous administration before Buhari’s, it was better as all forms of criminalities were not recorded then.
An activist, Adeyeye Olorunfemi, has revealed that he was asked to remove his #BuhariMustGo T-shirt before going live on a Channels Television programme on Monday.
Olorunfemi, however, walked out of the programme after refusing to remove the T-shirt.
He stated that he chose to walk out of the studio rather than continue with the interview because doing that was tantamount to compromising on his belief.
He noted that he was offered a jacket to wear, to cover the #BuhariMustGo inscription on his T-shirt but he refused as it was “too absurd” for him.
The activist did a live video in the Channels TV office, where he explained what occurred.
An activist, Oluwatosin Adeniji, has accused RevolutionNow convener, Omoyele Sowore, of pocketing an #EndSARS grant which she claimed Sowore collected in her name in 2020.
Adeniji, a known associate of Sowore and a member of his #RevolutionNow movement, said while she was in police custody last November, the Sahara Reporters publisher applied for the grant on her behalf, without her knowledge.
She and five others were arrested in front of the National Assembly complex, Abuja, last November for staging an #EndSARS protest. They were remanded in prison but later released on bail.
Narrating her ordeal on Tuesday, Adeniji, with Twitter handle @callmerahila, said Sowore and his lawyer, Tope Akinyode, applied for a grant in her name but the funds were not released to her.
She wrote, “@YeleSowore, it’s sad that you of all people could take advantage of my predicament. I went to prison last year November over #EndSARS but you decided to apply for a grant in my name without informing me, before, during, and after the application was made.
“Fast forward to January, I found out that a grant was applied for in my name but since you @YeleSowore was in detention I had to ask your lawyer @TopeAkinyod because I found out that he was the lawyer involved in the process.
First, you admitted that a grant was applied for in my name through the late Innocent Chukwuma but you are not sure he submitted the application till his death. You also raised concerns that it is possible that the late Innocent submitted the application and someone went behind your back to get the funds. This sounds absolutely unbelievable, especially coming from a man of your kind who would cross seven seas to unravel a mystery.
“I really feel oppressed and sad that after giving my commitment to serve in your movement for years to fight a system of oppression, the same you is this person dishing out all this oppression and lies just to get away with it.”
Sowore, has, however denied Adeniji’s claim.
He tweeted; “I never applied for or received any grants in her name or her behalf!”
”A RESPONSE: @callmerahila reached out to me earlier claiming a grant app was written in her name and I have confirmed to her that nothing of such existed. Further I volunteered to refund her if any grant was collected on her behalf without her knowledge!
”Without prejudice to any further action she will take! Pls note that this response is not intended as an attack on @callmerahila, she’s been a committed member of our movt over these yrs and assisted me in the last two years in particular while I was unjustly detained. Thanks!
Lastly, if anyone knows of any foundation that issued a grant on her behalf without her knowledge kindly reveal it to the public so that she can get her rightful entitlement. I never applied for or received any grants in her name or her behalf!”
Speaking with SaharaReporters on Monday, Emmanuel said he had come out with the #Rep.ealSSMPA campaign due to the state-supported homophobia and consequent violence on queer people in the country.
An advocate for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer persons in Nigeria, Victor Emmanuel, has ended his hunger strike aimed at driving home his message two days after he started.
Emmanuel is at the forefront of a campaign to repeal the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act.
In a video shared on his Twitter handle on Saturday, he had said he would be at the National Assembly in his one-man protest on an empty stomach till his request is granted.
Speaking with SaharaReporters on Monday, Emmanuel said he had come out with the #RepealSSMPA campaign due to the state-supported homophobia and consequent violence on queer people in the country.
He condemned the law which prescribed 14 years imprisonment for LGBTQ+ people while the same jail term is what some rapists are sentenced to, for hurting someone.
Emmanuel said, “What informed this protest is: first, the arrest of about 70 men at a birthday party in Anambra state. This is well reported. Indiscriminate arrests like this have been happening and it’s a great injustice. When these arrests take place, charges are not given; rather, the police extort and blackmail these victims.
I am at The National Assembly and I’m here to demand LGBTQ+ freedom and liberation!
“Also, I felt that the law had done enough damage. Socio-economically, LGBTQ+ people are affected. We can’t get jobs, especially those of us that it is visible we’re queer (masculine-presenting women and feminine-presenting men) and in cases where we do get employment, we could lose it if our sexual orientation is made public.
“There have been reports in the media where LGBTQ+ people have been expelled from school too. Families kick out their kids because they don’t understand queerness, and they won’t because the law forbids any form of education on the topic. I saw all these happening around me and I thought it was time that law was repealed.”
Emmanuel said his protest so far has earned him some mainstream and social media attention.
He said many Nigerians who didn’t know about the act before now understand its composition.
He said: “They thought it was just about getting married. But any human being with their humanity still intact will see that that law is wicked. LGBTQ+ persons can’t get access to health resources and materials because of that law. What I did, I believe opened the eyes of Nigerians and the international community to the barbaric nature of that law.”
According to him, some members of the LGBTQ+ community suggested he goes through legislative means rather than subject himself to hunger strike, sacrificing himself to a government that hardly listens.
Speaking on his experience identifying as gay in Nigeria, Emmanuel said he came out openly to his family in 2020 and had to leave due to this.
He said his father, had, however, kept mute about this.
He added: “We’ve spoken once this year and it didn’t come up so I don’t know what he thinks but I’m living my life regardless.”
He said it has been hard for him as a gay man living in Nigeria, especially as a student. Emmanuel said he has been harassed several times on the streets and some homophobic people had promised to kill his dog.
He continued: “I’m still in school. I’ve been harassed several times on the streets. I’m a very expressive person with my fashion. Sometimes I wear gender-nonconforming clothes (not cross-dressing), sometimes I wear light makeup, sometimes I fix my nails. These make people call me names and even though I don’t care, it’s still insulting to me as a human being.
“Recently, I heard from someone that some boys in my area are planning to kill my little dog. I don’t talk to anybody, never look for trouble. So yeah, I face homophobia too. Also, in school, I’ve lost friends and have been removed from some groups that were sort of important in my study. But it is what it is.”
When asked if he thinks the pro-LGBTQ+ policies the United States President, Joe Biden is introducing, will prevail on the Nigerian government, Emmanuel said though international support is good, the Nigerian government needs to realise that people of the LGBTQ+ community are citizens whose rights should be protected.
He added: “America can have their policies, but if they pressure the Nigerian government too much, then it begins to look like they’re trying to force LGBTQ+ on Nigerians, meanwhile we’ve always existed here. Most Nigerians think it’s foreign but what is foreign is homophobia, because it was when the white man brought us a religion that we began to hate some certain things, including queerness.”
Emmanuel also stated that considering that previous governments did not recognise the rights of LGBTQ+ persons in Nigeria, there was no hope that the Muhammadu Buhari-led government would change the narrative.
He added: “I keep getting this question and even some people suggested I wait till this administration leaves office. I tell them that what assurance do we have that the next government won’t be the same or worse? My point is, I will not wait till a ‘favourable’ administration before I ask for my right! We voted this government in and they have to listen to the demands of the people that voted them in.”
On January 7, 2014, former President Jonathan Goodluck assented to the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act, 2013 (SSMPA).
The law criminalises consensual same-sex sexual activity and stipulates a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment for offenders.
The act also noted that only marriages contracted between a man and a woman is recognised as valid in Nigeria.
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