MILITARY IMPUNITY OF MINISTER SUNDAY DARE IN A DEMOCRACY

NOTE: First published on May, 2020. The “Published” date on the tab is the date that it was uploaded on this new site. Though some issues in this piece may still be current (depending on…), this is to avoid mistaking this piece as current news.

This is “No Bullshiting”, by Harry Agina.

Greetings, folks!

Forgive me for skipping today’s NBB “Sunday-Sunday Medicine” due to a pressing matter of another Sunday whose surname is Dare, Nigeria’s Youths and Sports Development Minister. As ‘We’ started this blog, there was a brief debate between ‘Me’, ‘Myself’, and ‘I.’ You may call us the No-Bullshitting trinity if you will. In other words, a debate between Harry Agina and my two alter-egos, one of whom you already know as “Mr. No Bullshitting.” It was between ‘ME’ and ‘I’ on one side, represented by Harry, debating against the radical “Mr. No Bullshitting” on the other side, who I identify here as just “Mr. NB” for short. The debate went thus:

HARRY: Listen, Mr. NB, I suggest that you allow me to control the mood, character, and language of today’s blog. I don’t want us to be radical and rude to today’s subject.

MR. NB: Oh no, Harry, please allow me to talk to Sunday Dare in our normal hard-hitting language; he has insulted our journalism profession. Who the fuck does he think he is, to try to intimidate and gag the press, huh? Nigeria’s constitution says that we have press freedom of reporting news as we see it, meeeeeeeen!!!

HARRY: Oh, come on Mr. NB, I agree with you that Sunday Dare has been a very bad boy, but let’s spare him a little. You are already using the hard language by using the f-word now. Take it easy, please. After all, according to Nigerians, the man is an “Honorable” Minister.

MR NB: Ha ha, “Honorable” my foot! I don’t know why Nigerians insist to use such words like “Honorable” and “Distinguished” to address persons who do not deserve them. I am not your typical Nigerian, and I ain’t got to use such hypocritical words for persons who don’t deserve them, meeeeeeen! But, wait just a minute, Harry, are you saying that we can’t even use the word ‘fuck’ in this blog today?

HARRY: Well, okay, I guess we can use only the f-word just a little, but…

MR. NB: And ‘motherfucker’ too, please. Let’s also use ‘motherfucker’… pleeaase!!!

HARRY: No, no, no, Mr. NB…let’s not call anybody ‘motherfucker’ today. Let’s try to be politically-correct or socially-correct in our language, for a change; okay?

MR. NB: Well, okay, if you insist. But Minister Sunday Dare deserves to be told off in a strong ugly language, and we have the legal right to use any word for anybody, as long as we are legally-correct. If we call him ‘motherfucker’, he can also call us ‘motherfucker’ a million times if he wants…but he can’t do shit to us in court, meeeen!!

HARRY: You are correct, but let’s spare Dare the curse-words just this one time. And, don’t forget that Champion Bash Ali asked us a favor to take it easy with Dare; okay?

MR. NB: I guess so, if Bash said so, and you insist.

HARRY: Yeah, I do insist…thanks a million for obliging. You’re a good sport.

So, folks, as you have seen, I had to prevail on my blog alter-ego, Mr. No Bullshitting, to go easy on Sunday Dare in language. He does deserve to be addressed rudely for his impunity in trying to suppress press freedom with intimidation not to publish the allegation of corruption against him by a Nigerian hero, the World Boxing Champion, Bash Ali, who is an Officer Of The Order Of The Niger (OON).

So, I ask: Who the hell does Sunday Dare think that he is to try to violate the constitutional right of the Nigerian press to report or publish news in Nigeria, huh,? If Bash Ali says that Sunday Dare is corrupt, it is the duty and right of the press to publish it for the world to see. And, if Sunday Dare has a response for Bash Ali, then, we report it, too…shikena!!! That is what Nigeria’s constitution gives us power to do as our job, and one million Sunday Dares have no power or right whatsoever to stop us. He is just an ordinary appointed Minister. And, according to Bash ALI, not only that he is failing woefully in that job, he also disobeyed the directive of the man who gave him that privilege, our president and Commander-In-Chief, Mohammad Buhari. What is so annoying is that Dare wants to quash Bash Ali’s allegation, yet he gives his own press release to the same press to publish, meeeeeen!!!

According to Bash, President Buhari commanded Sunday Dare to execute Bash Ali’s Guinness World Record boxing championship event in Nigeria. Bash has documents to prove this, but Dare had the impunity to say that “the event will not see the light of day.” And, according to Bash, Dare’s reason to defy Buhari’s order is that Bash refused to bribe him. Can you believe that?!!! Anyway, whether we believe it or not, Bash has said so, and IT IS THE constitutional duty of the press to publish the allegation. Sunday Dare has no power to stop the press, period!!! His only right is to sue Bash to court for defamation of character if he knows that Bash is lying against him; and not to use lawsuit threat to stop the press from publishing the allegation. Let’s face it, only unschooled ignorant fools vomit such impunity-ridden empty threat to gag the press in contravention of constitutional freedom of the press, meeeeen!!!

Note that this blog is not really interested in whether Bash Ali’s allegation of corruption is true or false; no sir, no ma’am! I do have several documents that suggest that Bash is correct, but that’s not my interest now. I also have some documents that refute Sunday Dare’s statement that Nigerian government is neither interested nor involved in Bash Ali’s project, including the fact that President Olusegun Obasanjo, President Goodluck Jonathan, as well as Dare’s own boss, President Buhari, all inaugurated the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) of the project, respectively, during their tenures as president. I wonder what sort of explanation that Dare has to offer when he claims that “Nigeria government has no hand in the project.” I do have copies of inauguration speeches by three different Sports Ministers of Obasanjo, Jonathan, and Buhari’s Solomon Dalung, Dare’s predecessor. All three Presidents inaugurated the LOC for the event because they were/are aware of the huge financial revenue (billions of dollars) and the HUGE HONOR that it will bring to Nigeria. If this event was executed when Buhari directed Dare to do it, Buhari would not have to borrow all the funds that he has been borrowing to run Nigeria, because Nigeria would have made billions of US dollars already, not naira ooo!!!

Indeed, the records of the three LOC inaugurations are still available in broadcast houses’ archives in forms of video (TV broadcasts), audio (Radio), and newspapers. The only reason that the no-bullshitting action president, Obasanjo, did not conclude the event is that the inauguration was too late, in the twilight of his tenure, in late 2006, just a couple of months before the 2007 presidential election that ended his tenure. As for President Jonathan…well, we already know that he was a very weak leader who could not control his corrupt appointees to carry out his orders. And then came Buhari, whose Minister Dare, according to Bash Ali, is trying to kill the project, too, because Bash refused to bribe him ten million dollars in advance, as well as give him fifty percent of the entire revenues of the project, meeeeeeeen!!!

But, as I said, the corruption matter is story for another day. My key issue today is whether Sunday Dare has constitutional right or military might/power to stop the press from publishing Bash Ali’s allegations against him; and, the answer is hell-fucking-no!!! He ain’t got such constitutional right because our constitution says that the press has freedom to publish news; and he sure as hell ain’t got the military might or power because Nigeria is no longer in military rule. We now have a democracy. Dare’s legal fight is with Bash, and, if the entire heap of evidence that I have seen is anything to go by, then, folks, I’ve got to tell ya, Bash will bash dare down and out in the courtroom legal boxing ring, if he dares to go on with his threatened lawsuit. The fact that his Yoruba language surname is spelt exactly the same as the English language word ‘dare’ does not mean that he must dare to challenge anybody to a duel with impunity when he has no basis to win. The sooner he learns these facts, the better it is for him, and he may stop disgracing himself with such impunity to try to gag the press just for the reason that he is an ordinary Minister. But, if he wants to dare because he is named Dare, it is his right to try, meeeeeeeeen!!!

And, by the way, being a Minister just in Nigeria is nothing compared to the exploits and fame of the world boxing hero called Bash Ali, who Dare is trying to intimidate. Besides, if Bash wanted to be a minister, he would have been the Sports Minister for both Olusegun Obasanjo’s and Goodluck Jonathan’s governments. Whereas Dare got his position through man-know-man lobbying and begging, it’s on record that both former presidents offered Bash that same job based on merit during their tenures as president, but he turned them down because accepting ministerial job is a total demotion from his giant image of world Boxing Champion of great repute, down to an ordinary minister. Both presidents are still alive, and Dare can verify Bash’s claim that they both offered him the position. By this comparison, I want to remind Dare that the local ministerial position that has made him power-drunk is nothing in comparison to Bash’s image as a world hero. So, rather than all the bluff to intimidate Bash and the press, he should humble himself and seek reconciliation with Bash. All that Bash wants is to bring honor and huge money to his fatherland, meeeeeeen!!!

Sunday Dare is supposed to be schooled, and should know the law. But if he doesn’t, then, will somebody please educate him that an ORDINARY Minister can’t gag the press in a democracy. He boasts that Barrister Festus Keyamo is his lawyer; so fucking what!!! I believe that Keyamo is too smart and too knowledgeable to file such power-drunk suit to suppress the press in a democracy. So, Keyamo is unlikely to file such senseless suit against journalists, which he is very unlikely to win.

As for Dare’s character defamation suit, I hope that he knows that the only way he can win Bash Ali in court is if Bash Ali’s allegations are lies. If indeed the allegations are true, he (Sunday Dare) will end up paying Bash Ali for defamation of character for calling him a fraud. Throwing around the weight of Festus Keyamo as his lawyer to intimidate Bash is childish, and does not scare Bash, because an accomplished Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mike Ozekhome is a member of the Bash Ali Project’s LOC, and most likely to represent Bash in court against Keyamo, if Keyamo takes his case. So, here’s the question: Is Sunday Dare sure that Bash’s corruption allegations are false, or, is he so scared that the allegations are true and he is only trying to play a bluff game to stop the exposure of the ugly truth? If Keyamo gets hold of all the documents that I have now, he is very unlikely to represent Dare, lest he disgraces himself in court. A letter that Kaduna State governor, El Rufai wrote to Dare on this matter, a copy of which I have, advises Dare to stop his bullshitting and execute the project.

I will sign off with a statement to my mates in journalism, with all due respect, that any media house or journalist who falls for Sunday Dare’s attempt to cow or intimidate the press not to publish Bash Ali’s corruption allegation, needs to go back to school and learn the rules and legalities of the profession. As long as a journalist or media house does not editorialize in support of Bash, the media house or journalist has every legal right to publish whatever bash says, in form of news report. And Sunday Dare can’t do shit about it in a court of law. Any judge that obeys our constitution would throw Dare’s case against a journalist out like a bunch of trash as soon as it lands on his or her desk. In fact, no right thinking lawyer would even agree to file such press-freedom violation case in court at all…and, I know, that you know that I ain’t bullshitting ya, meeeeeeen!!!

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