The Underworld Podcast - BONUS PATREON MADE FREE: Nigeria's Cults and Revolution with Omoyele Sowore

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

Building off our Nigerian Cults episode: Omoyele Sowore was attacked by the cults as a student leader, saw them morph into political power, and tried to take them down. Now the New Jersey resident - a journalist, activist and 2019 presidential candidate - is under house arrest in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. With gangsters in the government and the rule of law trampled, will Sowore's revolution take hold? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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No. Crispy, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711. Valley through 62326, participating stores only while supplies lastly out for full terms. Welcome to the Underworld podcast where each week we dive into the secret world of organized crime and mafias and crime bosses all over the world. We just did an episode about Nigeria, specifically Black Ax, something that I went out to report on a couple of years ago.

And while I was there, I met Omayeli Shawari, who is a journalist, a human rights activist, a politician. Am I forgetting anything there? a marathon runner, perhaps? The last one, politician, I don't see myself as a politician, I see myself as a political activist because of the world politician has like really negative connotations in Nigeria.

Right, right. But you did run for president in the elections last year, right? Yes. On an anti-corruption ticket. And it has a lot to do with the kind of history of the cults in a way, right? Yes.

Yes, it had a complete, you know, it was into woven into my history as an activist since I was about 10 years old, yes. Yeah. So, yeah, I first met you what a couple of years ago it was in Lagos in Sahara Reporter's office, which is the media organization that you've been running from New York for several years now. In 2006, yes. Right, right, right. And then I went off all over the country for about three or four weeks and tried to try to. to find various people inside the Black Axwitz at various levels of success.

But yeah, then that story came out last year and we've kind of been talking on and off since then. Now, you had a kind of really intimate knowledge of the cults going back to the sort of early 90s, right, when you were a college in Lagos. Could you just tell us a little bit more about that? So when I was in college, I didn't know much about cultism beyond.

The Paris confronts, which is their form by Professor Wollisho Inca. And you know, I took you to him as well. I think we met him together. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And there goes. Yeah, he's pretty, he's pretty belligerent about the way that it's become now, right? Since the days that he started everything, yeah.

Yeah. So when I got into school, we didn't hear much about them, but they were like, we're hearing rumors about recruitment into courts, but there were no court groups. It was later we found out that their means of recruitment was using social groups. So one of it I remember was a social group known as ABC Club. So you're coming as ABC Club. The intention is to just have a social field on campus, So just to go to parties and, you know, I met hard girls.

So it's just like a Greek fraternity or a Greek fraternity in the United States. So that was the innovative way of just bypassing the negativity of being at the joining court. So, but one day, I think when year I won, there was a whole, you know, a lituratorial camp was an poster saying that some group were going to sell that night. It was a court group and it was panic on campus. campus. They're going to sail. Yes, sell means.

You know, they're going to have like an initiation in the night. They said it hadn't happened on campus for a long time. Of course, the school authorities issued a state. This was my first chair on campus. Should a statement saying this is not acceptable or it's not going to happen. Of course, during the night, everybody was out of the campus. Next day, we found on a junction on campus. Campos, a coffin and some rituals at a junction.

And that was last we heard about them. But then in my first year, some guys moved into my room without permission. And it turns out that they were caught guys. And we fought and they eventually left. But I didn't know how proliferated the way of camp was. Because we didn't have the usual clashes. we're hearing from other campuses. So it wasn't up until

my whole year on campus that I started to see the infrastructure of cultures and I'll go to several places and I found guys hanging out in front of the lagoon front and then certain clubs. So some guys

who were students but never went to class and they're always drinking all the lawn and we're hearing about fights on campus. And that got me interested. So at this point, the cults, like the Black

Acts, for example, they've been, like lots of cult groups have been banned on campuses by them, right? This is the early 90s. Yes, they've been banned. There was an official ban against, I mean, on them by the federal government and the school authorities. So when you're coming on campus as a freshman, it's one of the

information you get. You should never join courts. It's illegal to join courts. It was liable to be expelled if you're found in any of these God groups. So I think you made them go underground, deep on the ground. But yeah, they were successful in recruiting people, students, yeah. Why was that?

Why were they so popular with the young guys? I think it was because they didn't want to be identified. And they were supposed to be secret. And driving them on that ground made them really become very secretive. But still offered a number of students. students, you know, the mob watching offers of connection with powerful people, so connection with getting girls and having fun, tempers and becoming, you know, successful in life, because quite a number of their people were actually successful.

Yeah, like, so. So at this point that you've just got to university and you've seen this coffin and a bunch of kind of ritual stuff, like hanging out on the side of the street, um, That must be pretty strange thing to see when you just joined up to college. And then how did you kind of join the dots and see that there was this kind of big underground network going on? How did you find out that these guys were getting involved in it? You know, we started researching, especially towards my last year at the university and the military rule became more pronounced.

They started getting emboldened in terms of political interferences on campus. They will try to sponsor senior union candidates in the city, senior union government. Or on one occasion, they had a position that was opposed to that of the senior union. And they were like, who are these guys? Like, oh, you can't go out to protest, who will attack you, kind of thing. And then, of course, we're getting reports from particularly females of rapes, sexual harassment, and, you know, and a forceful kind of sexual activity on campus. And we're getting reports of staffs,

especially coming out of the staff quarters, where the university professors had housing, and their kids are there. But what has happened to most of the professors is because they have boys' quarters, and they rent them out to this guys, because the kids are fairly well-to-do Nigerians. So many of them actually children of army generals in those days.

I mean, military top-notch people. So this is just, they were just so repetitive that we had to pay attention to that. So they were coming from all parts of society then. They weren't like poor kids looking for a way into society or, you know, kids that were formed by the wayside. We found out then that different groups, different groups are like different hangar spots. so like the black out said their own hangar spots you know

the Buccaneers as I remember them and the AEC confatianity in those days and we were the Vikings on camp but I think about

five or six of them that I know you know and then we started getting on that grand information about their Capone's Capone

means the main leader Right by Al Capon Yeah so and at a point some of them

actually came out to me when I became to the union leader that oh you know where they want to choose the union leaders on this campus but in the own case

you were too popular but she just want to let you know that we exist so it's kind of a threat kind of a threat it was a sort of tract to say look

you know you got to work with us you got to let us know you know we want to let you know we want to let you know that we're existing you got to just work with us. So at the point, I identified clearly the capone of the buccaneers,

and those ones used to wear yellow. And that's the signal. They wear yellow berets. But they weren't wearing yellow on campus. But there's something yellow about their dressing. You know, the air, yeah, they were red. And they wouldn't wear berets, even though in their, in their little world

the world signals and then they had a greeting you know like some of them when they shake hands you know they use index finger

to scratch your palm so I got to know about he as a student you know president it was

somehow so fascinating I was a little of sitting and I'm finding out about all these secret groups on campus

and how they operated so I took time to learn who was where and where you could look fit them or who so when there would be crime on campus it was easy to find who did what

and so at this point you were the leader of the student union in the university later I had become yeah I've become but the time I met the time that I had when I saw the Buccaneers was as soon as I was sworn

in a student union press in there and I saw them and one of your guys came to me me and say, look, we hang out in this place, we're a Buccaneers. I was like, wow, that's interesting. What did you do? Like, no, we're not trying to harm anybody, you know.

So, and he told me, like, oh, you know, a former Student Union leader on campus, who was former who was still around, pretending to be doing his master's degree was one of their leaders. And then he told me, sensibly, how they were connected

with the school authorities, because school authorities use them for balancing, politically speaking, against student leaders who are not members of these cult groups. Why were they kicking out against students on campus then? What was the kind of fighting between students and the cults? Because we were opposed to what they were doing, especially issues of rape. And that's the point I said we had a confrontation over. We were planning a protest and they issued a statement, kind of a cryptic statement

that we can't go out because they won't support, they don't support the Student Union. And of course, we went bonkers. Okay. And you mentioned, I think when we last met,

you mentioned that you were actually attacked by them, right? In, was it, 1993? In the moment, so at a point when we knew these guys have become a distraction and we suspected, rightly later we found the evidence to show that

this government was using them as a social political distraction we had to go after, we had to be opposed to them open so I was like what he stood for was against what we stood for which was a fight for democracy, human rights, human decency and the dignity of human students. In this case as I mentioned to you, we've had several cases of rapes, sexual assault on campus that were not treated. And then it got to the head when the call for a meeting on campus. And as we were doing surveillance, found one of them with a hand grenade.

You found a hand grenade? Yes, yes. And what happened then? We dispossessed the guy of the hand grenade, handed him to police. and the next day he was back on campus. Why did you think that was? Why was he not put in jail at that point? I think the person with the Grand Grenier was coming in,

there was supposed to be a clash between the group that was meeting and the group that was opposed to them because there's always a tough war. So this is the defining thing about these groups. You know, wherever any campus where they exist, there's always this continuous superiority to offer. war, you know, someone wants to dominate so that the other ones would submit to them and respect them. So, and I think there was an attempt to attack the group that was meeting on campus

and that night. And this guy was coming on campus with a hand grenade and we caught him, red hand every day, dispossessed him of the hand grenade before he could remove the pain. Because when he saw that... I mean, when, this is going to sound kind of crazy to, to me. many listeners that someone's just walking around with a hand grenade but did they actually set them off did that kind of stuff happen we do a little research there was newspaper reporting of this particular matter is that in those days newspapers not used to be online yes it was crazy you know he pulled us when we subdued him that we could all be dead because this is a hand grenade he'd never son he's never seen any student's group so courageous that we approached him

him and dispossess him of your grand hand. They said if you remove the pain, it would have been deadly. I mean, that puts into context the kind of fights that are going on on U.S. college campuses, I guess, right? I think so, but I've never heard of a U.S. college campus

where people went to a sorority fights with a hungry man. This one is a little bit sorority 2.0. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you I remember you describing them to me at the time as kind of lower district gang like lower district gangs in the U.S., right?

They're more in common with your just kind of straight up and down gangs than anything else. They're more like street gangs, you know, well-armed, you know, or fairly armed. And, you know, because I've, I mean, I attended the university in the U.S. Columbia University to be specific in New York. Never seen the sorority just worried. I've seen members of sorority getting drunk, but not with a big knife or gone. you know yeah but I've also lived in Brooklyn where I've had I've seen

street gangs at war it wasn't funny yeah yeah and I mean that's the interesting thing about these cults I guess is it's kind of the difference between the gangs on campus and off campus and how they kind of work together and I guess the difference with the black acts especially is that it still claims that it's this kind of charitable organization right, the NBM and they claim that the two aren't linked and that this is just kind of historical anti-racist freedom fighting group and I'm guessing that you would see it differently than that. Well, my experience with the blackers is different. I'm aware that there's a struggle

within the movement to separate the militia from the original intention of the group. But the evidence is very evident out there and that there is a complete deviation huge degree of deviation from what the original intention was and what they're doing now I will use the description of black on black violence that's set through the South Africa after the end of

the appetite so I don't know where the NBM is doing charitable work today but I've seen with the MBM, I've seen, you know, after effects of gang wars between the NBM and ordinary in the blackhats. And so something that's quite hard to parse apart is like how these guys on campus that are maybe like dealing drugs and causing fights and committing abuses on fellow students, how are they connected to the guys outside the campus gates, the politicians and the kind of crooks and the kind of,

how are those two worlds linked together? Oh, no, you know, I'll tell you that anybody that is willing to do a dirty job or oppressing, suppressing either formally or informally, is a darling of the Nigerian political clash. Right. You could be like a long, if you can kill,

and they know you to be like real daring and destructive or your phone will be ringing out of the hook from big time politicians so you just have to show that you've got some muscle behind you and then you're going to come running for you. You just have to show that you can do damage, real damage. Yeah, I think that Americans might have seen some guys like standing outside the ballots recently in Virginia and they're like these guys are holding up democracy

but in Nigeria, I mean, historically in the last sort of 15, 20 years ago, it gets really violent, right? It's not just people standing outside the voting booth. It's not been violent. I mean, if we were taking, if there was a museum, not a museum, if there was a barrier ground for victims of court violence, called gang violence in Nigeria, it would probably be as many as the number of people. that were killed in one city in Liberia during the war. You know, I'll be saying we would have nothing less than some 1,500 persons buried in that place

if we were to have a cemetery for victims of caught gang violence. So the politicians would be kind of paying these guys just to cause chaos, right, around elections and make sure that people were voting for the right guy. You know, after I was done with campus politics, as I call it, or campus student activism, I went on to become a publisher. And I did a lot of, I did some focusing on the role of the court gangs in political activities, found them to be very active in Ogun State years ago under former government. Where's Oregon State?

Just for people that might not be? Ogun State is a state next to Lagos. Okay. I found them to be very active in Delta states, in Erdo states, in river states, cross-river state, in a quite warm state, they're still active today. In fact, the bulk of the Niger Delta militants, I would say bulk, but a considerable, reasonable number of them were former compost gangsters. So these are the militants that are kind of in the Niger Delta that have been either trying to... you know, the remnants of the Biafram war, I guess, or activists against the oil companies there as well.

It was, it was, you know, the militants that started fighting against Nigerian states after they killed Kansar, we were. Right. Most of those guys were former campus, you know, secret cult leaders or operators. And Edo being the state around Benin. It was not a powerful restaurant for them.

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well you know what we have heard and found out is that they have gotten involved in this and i have seen video clips of fights in italy between discord gangs fighting for 12. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, yeah. So, so the evidence is clear that some of these guys have really graduated internationally and some of them really involved in the human trafficking rings between state and Europe, particularly Italy. And you mentioned before, to take it back to your time as a young man kind of fighting for rights, on the campus, you said that they grabbed you one day, these guys, right?

And they kind of tortured you. Yeah, they grabbed me, they touched me, they injected me with a non-chemical, so I don't know, I wasn't care. I don't, we don't know substance, and left me for dead. And I ended up in the hospital. What was the lead-up to that? It was because we're having issues with the operations on campus, and we didn't want to have a campbell.

was taken over by cult groups because we felt it was sponsored. Not we felt we knew it was sponsored by the government and the school authorities to suppress one of the most active student union groups in the camp in Nigeria at that time that was fighting for democracy. And how does the, you know, how closely now are the politicians linked to cultists still? Some people say that it's not quite a strong link, but I mean, there's still a huge amounts of corruption, right? Well, if anybody tells you

Nigerian politicians are not linked with cult gangs, especially the violent court gangs. And I don't know if any court gangs at this time that is non-violent, I have to tell you. Yes. Well, it's as good as

saying that the Pope is not linked with the Vatican. Right, right. There's still just all around they're still doing the same stuff as they've been doing before? Yes. And now they spread onto the streets. They now have like streets.

The part they have now caught gangs on primary school, primary schools and secondary schools. Right, yeah. I was down in a wedding on a campus down there and some guy told me that he'd been threatened back in his hometown near Lagos by a kid that was like 10 that was wearing a beret and the yellow outfit

and everything and you just couldn't believe that this had sort of I guess the cults have kind of injected themselves into every part of life right they've gone for the young kids and now the old guys are kind of pulling the strings in the country at the top level as well right? Yes

they've done everything they can to maintain presence everywhere and now they have they have female passions of all the male court groups. It used to be particularly this chauvinistic

system of gangstarianism or cultism or secrecy. According to African culture which is sad, women could never be trusted with secrets. Wow. Yeah.

So this is not my position just to make it clear. This is backward. culture. Right. So there were not a lot of females that were in those parts. So many of groups forbid females from becoming secret courts members.

But now there's a black bra. I've had so many female counter-bashions of each of the deadly culture. And some of them are deadly and male bashings. I mean, so it's like really out of control at this point. I mean, like I was kind of discovering when I was doing my reporting as well, so much of the violence and the kind of gangsterism that came out of the confraternities in the late 70s, early 80s, was a direct result of the military dictatorship, right? That it was imposing its power down on the people.

Yeah. It was military dictatorship. And following up to that, it's a very partial political class that. that was a, you know, a development from the military. Because when Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999, there was no direct handle of power to a non-military class. The next person was a military person, retired, the Luchegno Bastian of Bastian.

So that culture of violence and the use of violence to achieve for as a means of achieving power was still very prevalent. and still prevalent it today. Yeah, I mean, Bahá'i is in power now, right? If you look at where we are today, if you look at where we are today, we still have a former military grandpa who is still in power,

still using violence and intimidation, harassment, and general muslin of opposition as a means of achieving compliance. So we're still in that cocoon of militarization Right. Right. And you set up Sahara reporters in 2006, right? And people have called it...

I just set up... Well, I would say it's 2005, but the publication, the first publication, didn't come out until February 2006. Okay, okay. And people have called it Africa's WikiLeaks because, you know, unlike so many outlets in Nigeria, you've really hammered corrupt politicians.

You haven't really had the fear to go after people. The way I like to call it is an equal opportunity offender to the corrupt and the powerful and the oppressive class. Yeah, yeah. And I guess that brings us up to date with your current running politics. So could you give me a little rundown? I mean, I don't know if I've mentioned this already on the interview, but you're actually calling me from house arrest in Abuja, the capital, right?

Yeah, well, the right way to describe it is probably never seen in a dictionary of any form of arrest. I mean a city arrest. City arrest. I'm confined to Abuja, the federal capital of Thieves. It's called FCT. The federal capital territory is what they call it, but I call it federal capital of thieves. but that's my own appellation for Abuja

so that's what I'm talking to you from and how long have you been in Abuja for I've been here since December 24th 2019 it's almost nine months now in a few days and yeah

tell me a little bit about how that came about and how you decided to run for the presidency last year Well, you know, I ran for presidents in 2018 and the elections happened or the non-election or selection happened in 2019. And after I found out that, the were interested in free and three elections, I started organizing young people across the country for a confrontation, peaceful confrontation against

the states, the Nigerian state and President Mohammed Buhari. So we scheduled a peaceful protest for August 5th, 2019. I came from the U.S. in July to organize it and publicized for it. On August the 3rd, 20 19, they invaded my hotel room in the middle of the night, and got me arrested and flown to Abuja, where I am. I am now. Detained me for about five months and they charged me to court for a variety of crimes, about seven counts, one of it was that I was trying to overthrow the government and that I insulted the president.

In addition to laughable charge that I was engaging in money laundering for transferring money from one account, one of my accounts to the order. Right, right. And so, excuse me. But by the way, they dropped all the charges. They dropped all the charges? Yeah, they dropped the money laundering charges. and I'm in charge and also that of insulting the president. So I'm left with a treasonable fellow,

which is the insinuation that I was trying to overthrow the government with quackards. Since you were kind of bundled into a van and taken up to the capital, you've had people back in New Jersey, led by your wife who've been protesting on your behalf there. You've had Amal Clooney has kind of joined the call to, to set you free from the Nigerian government. Have you had any kind of comeback from any of that yet? No, yeah.

The Nigerian government is, unfortunately, doesn't respect public opinion or international pressure as such. But I must thank them. All of the efforts led to my initial release into the city. I used to be in solitary confinement for 23 hours every day, until I was released December 24th to come out to the city

but I've been confined to city at my day they're holding onto my passport they seize my passport and they froze all my accounts in Nigeria and I've made it impossible for me to get out of the city of Abuja

to visit my mom who has been sick by the way and all allowed me to go see my wife and kids in New Jersey that's awful I'm sorry man that's really really terrible and what I mean have you had no conversations with the government at all during this time no I you know my lawyers the ones who are responsible for

speaking on my behalf and the government does not reach that to us in a way that shows that they're remorseful for doing for these atrocious attack on my liberty. I was struck when I was reporting the story about the Black Axe, actually, that the kind of level of hate that I was getting back from people that I would just be reaching out to on the phone or anything really meeting in bars. I received so many death threats by people, people trying to follow me around everywhere. I think you had mentioned to me that it would be a really hard one to report.

But is this just what happens in Nigeria? I mean, everything's so secretive, it seems. It is. Because as you really had mentioned, the black ass is one of the oldest. I think the oldest was the Paris Comptonite, led by Professor Wally Schoenegher, and the black ass was followed as a rival at these days.

And they had to mine historical knowledge at a viable plan to liberate humanity particularly fighting to end apartheid and discrimination on the continent of Africa and Israel. I think when this was diverted in a very negative way, it became an arbitrage on the neck of probably the guys who started it and who are now influential to be associated with such a disgraceful conduct was something very hard to swallow. That's my suspicion and that's probably why you will follow.

I was followed for years. I was threatened, even after I was attacked, they threatened me for several years. And today I still get harassed by someone who's called guys that we have confrontation with on campus. Yeah, I still, I'm amazed how many people's identities I had to change in that story just to be able to like, you know,

do it without them getting killed. Because absolutely everyone is always getting threatened by one of these guys, right? I mean, it's so, so pervasive in Nigeria. How much, I mean, how much of the fight against corruption on the political level is a fight against the cults in Nigeria? The two kind of like an interchangeable thing at this time? No, no, I don't think. I mean, most likely the corrupt guys have, you know, cultist relationships.

I don't, there's no, I don't see any defined fight against cultism that has anything to do with corruption. Right. And the electoral commission that's supposed to go after this kind of stuff, the ballot stuffing and the violence, right, they're kind of, from what I understand, they're not the most independent of groups in the country anyway. No, no. The world independent is a misnomer. It's not independent about the National Electoral Commission. They work for the highest bidders and those in power. I mean, the contradiction of Bill is that when you have the president of the country appointing the head of the electoral commission, you should already expect where you want his loyalty to be.

You should understand that he'll probably support the president. were elected or were appointed him into office. So I don't know why people expect so many different from the Nigerian electoral commissions or electoral bodies. That's, they were designed ab initio from the beginning to, uh, for the pipe at the state, the tune.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I, I guess that America's going for it right now with this Supreme court pick, right? And so many people are up in arms about whether the next super, Supreme Court pick is going to be a conservative along the lines of Trump, but it's like, you guys

created this system. So who's surprised that who's in power gets to decide on kind of what justice looks like as well? And I guess that's a similar thing to what you're describing, isn't it? USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more

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because the only thing better than a great playlist is a great trip. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Book direct and save at Best Western. Eastern.com. Yes, it's a same system. It's a same system. We've got a long way to go here. It's the reason why after 2019

election, I switched, or we switched on my seven number of young people, lots of who have switched over to revolution now. We don't think the existing reform templates can take Nigeria to any enviable enviable heights. It's

not possible. Right, right. So it's only from the ground up that people can really fight back. It has to be a complete overhaul. It has to be a complete overhaul. Okay. Well, yeah, thanks, Emily. I guess I'm really sorry about your predicament as it stands,

but I'm hoping that something can sort out soon. Do you have any hopes that anyone's going to be changing your situation in the future? You know what? I just said to you Tecera, serra. Whatever we do. Yeah, yeah. Well...

It was not for us to say, man. Well, it's... I hope the best for you. And, yeah, thanks of us so much for speaking to me. Thank you so much. Revolution now. Some follow the noise.

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