Zombies at work

 

On Tuesday, September18, 2012 at about 11.00am eight men including a camera man, a middle aged woman and 15 fully armed police officers stormed our office located at No. 6, Olaribiro Street, off Allen Avenue, Lagos; ignoring our security personnel, they walked directly to the reception area. In a stern voice, a man who I later learnt is Mathew Ojo and leader of the team, demanded to see Mr. Mayo Ayilaran, our Chief Executive Officer/Director General.

When I informed him that he was yet to resume for the day, he asked who was next in hierarchy. Sensing that something must be amiss, I asked him what I could do to help. It was at this point that he flashed his identification card of Nigerian Copyright Commission, NCC, adding for effect that they were in the office to see our top executives.

Everything took a surreal turn at this point as he demanded that I should not make any call, and marched me to the main office area. He then ordered me to show them the way to the next floor of our office. On getting down, I saw that my other colleagues on the ground floor had been assembled at the reception area with all their phones seized from them. They rained abuses on us while at the same time, carting away our files and computers.  They then ordered us into a waiting Pharagon bus surrounded by the police officers who pointed their guns at us.

We got to their Costain Lagos office at about 2.30pm. With all our phones seized from us, and denied access to our lawyers and family members, we remained incommunicado. At about 5.00pm, we were asked to make statements which we declined insisting on seeing our lawyers as a precondition. It was only when our lawyers were allowed to see us around 5.00 p.m. that we wrote our statements.  

By 8.00pm, they took us to their Library besieged by the officials. Things turned  really nasty   as they  began to call us all sorts of unprintable names saying they would wipe out MCSN because of the Garnishee order granted by the Federal High Court against them (N40 million) which has made  them not  to receive salary for two months. In fact one of them said he would blind our Head of Communication, Halim Mohammed if he talks or requests again to make telephone calls. He also said if we do not like what they are doing to us we should move away from Nigeria and go ahead to create our own Republic!

At about 10.00pm we were marched out from the office alongside fully armed police officers and taken to a waiting white coloured Toyota bus. We were driven to an unknown destination which looked like a detention centre. We slept on the bare floor with no toilet provision and asked to urinate in the bucket at the corner of the stuffy room.

By 9.00a.m the next day, Wednesday, September 19, 2012, we were served breakfast of rice and beans which I could not eat. The NCC officials came at 1.45pm to take us back to their office where they asked us to write fresh statements. We were finally granted bail at about 9.00pm with MCSN’s chairman, Orits Williki standing as our surety.