True activism is built on values, ethics, and respect for law and order. This is why in 1956 in Montgomery, Alabama, the great Martin Luther King, while protesting white discrimination said, “We believe in law and order. We want to love our enemies.” But can the same be said of most activists today who parade themselves as the people’s mouthpiece and defender?
Regrettably, what one finds today is what can be described as activism with bitterness, and that is why there is the predominance of peaceful protests turning violent because of the seeds of discord and distrust planted in the minds of many by these self-styled activists. The same goes for human rights advocates who deploy activism as a cover-up for their hidden agenda, as well as lust for anarchy. Deji Adeyanju and Bayo Oluwasanmi are two individuals versed in this regard.
Deji Adeyanju
Deji Adeyanju, a co-convener of Omoyele Sowore’s #RevolutionNow campaign, has been at the helm of heating up the polity for as long as the incumbent government in Nigeria assumed office. The PDP former Director of News Media has consistently formed an alliance with his principal to make Nigeria ungovernable. His social media from where he deploys his schemes, propaganda and machinations, is filled with all manners of inciteful statement aimed at upending the polity.
His latest post on his twitter handle insists that, “Buhari wants the country to break up that’s why he is intentionally running the country to the ground. He wants every citizen to lose hope in the country and join the secessionist to be calling for an end of the country.”
Deji Adeyanju was one of the supporters of the violent demonstrations that greeted the #EndSARS protest. In a post on his Facebook, Adeyanju, refusing to condemn the violent attacks on private and public property, said that “A Government that sponsored thugs to attack citizens for protesting is now wondering why the monsters are suddenly out of control and looting shops. #EndSARS”
He went on to say “The Government is behind all the violence”, and that “Buhari ordered soldiers to kill protesters; he did the same to Shiites. This is his regular trademark.”
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Adeyanju was equally one of those who urged the protesters not to stop the #EndSARS campaign. According to him, “Nigerians would stop protesting when they see seriousness on the part of the government to reform the Nigeria Police Force, NPF.” He stated this despite being aware of the immediate dissolution of the now defunct SARS. While revealing his attempts to hijack the protest like Sowore, his principal, Adeyanju said that it was “naivety to think that the protest is only about SARS.”
Meanwhile, findings reveal that Adeyanju was once accused of murder as a University student. He is alleged to be a cultist from his days as a student at Bayero University, Kano where he was admitted to study English Language in the year 2000. He was said to have joined a gang known for carrying out assassination jobs. He is also known as Charles and likely to be known by other names because he was alleged to have been kicked out by the Nigerian Peace Corp for impersonation.
Several times, the police has used several screenshots of Mr Adeyanju’s Facebook page as evidence of his public misconduct which were not only criminally defamatory but also capable of inciting public disturbance, threat to public security and safety, derogatory conduct against constituent authority, and breach of law and order.
Even so, Adeyanju has made it a habit to give deliberately misleading information to Nigerians, particularly on his Twitter handle. It was on his Twitter account that he, in 2017 claimed that former President Goodluck Jonathan had been invited to the inauguration of the then American president-elect, Donald Trump, while President Muhammadu Buhari was not invited.
The report was proven to be false after Jonathan visited another former president, Olusegun Obasanjo at Otta in Ogun state the same day Trump held his inauguration in Washington DC. Rather than bury his head in shame, he took a hearty laugh at Nigerians who were quick to vent their anger for the misleading news.
His recent letters to the US government that the country’s ICT minister is an ally of various international terrorist groups who must be brought to book, is an attestation of how he distorts facts and engages in deliberate exaggerations capable of causing public disorder, and serious violence.
Bayo Oluwasanmi
Bayo Oluwasanmi, a popular Sahara Reporter journalist, is another Nigerian that has been at the centre of stoking violence within the overarching polity. He carries this out through many of his publications which are awash with sectarian strife. He has never hid his hatred for a United Nigeria as seen in one of the title of his numerous publications, “Nigeria Will Never Be Great”.
Bayo Oluwasanmi is an ethnic-profiler whose disavowal for the North and Fulani race is unmatched. In an article titled, “Prof. Anglo Abdullahi Defends Northern Nonsense”, he averred that “Fulanis are the ones going around the country butchering innocent people. They are the Boko Haram terrorists. They are the herdsmen terrorists. Fulanis are the greatest obstacle to the unity and stability of Nigeria.”
In the same artcle, Oluwasanmi stated that “Fulanis are the only ethnic group taking everything and contribute nothing to the federal purse. Fulanis monopolised all positions in federal appointments and employments in ministries, corporations, and institutions. Fulanis had ruled for over 40 years out of 60 years of our independence.”
When matters got to a head over the farmers/herders crises, Bayo Oluwasanmi rallied round Sunday Igboho, egging him in his violent sprays. While rebuking Ojudu for exposing Sunday Igboho as a thug who was prevailed by Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu not to upend the 2007 Ekiti rerun gubernatorial elections, Bayo Oluwasunkanmi said “Igboho by words and action has demonstrated that “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
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Oluwasanmi further stated that “It is people like Ojudu for their own primitive selfishness and greediness, who aid and abet Fulani herdsmen terrorists to turn Yoruba land into empty, wasteland.”
As a promoter of secession like Sunday Igboho, Bayo, while vilifying Fulani ethnicity, in a write-up titled, “The Necessity For Oduduwa Nation”, stated that “Yoruba politicians – governors, senators, reps at state and federal levels – benefactors of the rotten system, have joined the Fulani at the helm to oppress Yorubas.
“Plum federal jobs are exclusively reserved for less educated, less skilled, less polished, less intelligent Fulanis. Highly educated, highly skilled, highly intelligent professional Yorubas are employed in the dirtiest, heaviest, menial, and poor-paying jobs. Yorubas fight over jobs that no one else wants.
“Yorubas are trapped in a vicious cycle of economic, intellectual, social, and political death. Fulanis have made Nigeria a hostile, dangerous, unlivable country. We have no peace. No progress. No pursuit of happiness. Nigeria is not safe for us.”
Only a man with great passion for ethnic crises and violence can make the call for secession and make it the centrepiece of all his public discourse.