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clay-air · 5 years ago

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IT Reddie/Stanlon/Benverly In the Flesh AU

Losers are in their early/mid-thirties.

Living: Bill, Ben, Mike

PDS sufferers: Georgie, Beverly, Stan, Richie, Eddie

Five years ago, the dead rose all around the world, and the small town of Derry, Maine, was no exception. Halfway into the zombie apocalypse, a breakthrough drug called neurotriptaline allows the risen dead to regain their senses—rebranded as Partially-Deceased Syndrome sufferers, they receive treatment and begin to be integrated back into the communities they nearly destroyed. Derry was never the most tolerant of towns, and to no one’s surprise the surviving townsfolk are incredibly hostile to the returning PDS sufferers. It is in this setting that seven Losers—each damaged in their own way by the events of (and prior to) the Rising—find each other and start to heal.

Disjointed outline and notes below the cut: I will definitely never actually write a fic for this bc I am pathologically incapable of turning my ramblings into a cohesive story with a plot and all that, so everything is up for grabs!! If you do get inspired by my musings and write or draw something, please lmk!!! Also feel free to comment with your own thoughts/ideas/headcanons!!!!

Warning for references to: suicide, homophobia, spousal/parental abuse, hate crimes, self-harm scars, violence

Bill Denbrough gets his baby brother Georgie (their age gap is a lot bigger in this AU) back but has to deal with the residual guilt he still feels about his death (an accident Bill maybe could have prevented). He saw Georgie after he’d risen, missing an arm and eating a dude (alternatively, Zombie!Georgie actually kills Bill’s wife Audra bc Bill hesitated over shooting him, and Bill has to deal with that while also trying to make sure Georgie doesn’t find out/remember what he did) and was the one to restrain him so he could be sent to the treatment center.

Ben Hanscom loved Beverly Marsh from afar until she went missing (killed by her abusive husband who later died during the Rising) and when she comes back to Derry from the treatment center with no one waiting for her, he decides this time he’ll actually step up and be there for her. Of course he has to actually get her to trust him first. She vaguely remembers him as a guy who was always nice to her, but it’s dangerous to assume that anyone in Derry has less-than-homicidal feelings regarding those with PDS. Beverly is starts off nervous and flighty, but eventually adopts a very “middle finger to the whole damn town” attitude, and, despite her initial reservations, finds that the words of a certain Undead Prophet are starting to resonate with her....

Stanley Uris committed suicide before rising from the grave, and he’s trying to find a reason to stick around for his “second chance at life” that he never wanted in the first place. Can he finally move past the cloying, suffocating fear he felt every second he was alive now that he no longer has any need to “fear the Reaper”? He finds companionship in Mike Hanlon, a quiet man who defended his farm on the outskirts of town all by himself during the Rising, luring the Risen who wandered on to the property into a barn and keeping them inside once he heard about the successful neurotriptaline trials. Mike’s refusal to join the Human Volunteer Force during the Rising (he didn’t want to kill anyone, zombie or not) earned him the scorn of the already-pretty-racist townsfolk.

Richie Tozier was the victim of a homophobic hate crime, and now because of bureaucratic bullshit (reintegrated PDS sufferers need to be incident-free for a minimum of three years before they can change their address) he has to come back to the very same town that loathed him enough to kill him. Also they have another reason to hate him now! He’s trying to take it in stride (or at least outwardly appear like he’s taking it in stride) but his murderer, Henry Bowers, is basically a town hero for helping form the HVF, and he’s using his status in the town to make Richie’s already pretty miserable half-life hell. Things start turning around for him when he finds a reason to stop playing hooky and actually show up for the Give Back program: another PDS sufferer who is wound up tighter than anyone he’s ever met, is absolutely CAKED in flesh-tone makeup, and whose snapped insults in response to Richie’s trashmouth antics don’t carry the now-familiar hatred behind them that he’s become accustomed to. Also he’s cute as fuck. But damn, gay thoughts come with a lot of baggage after being gay literally got you killed.

Eddie Kaspbrak succumbed to slow poisoning by his mother, who’s Munchausen by proxy escalated with deadly effects. Unfortunately, once he’s released from the treatment center Eddie has nowhere to go but back into her open arms. She refuses to acknowledge what she did to him, and starts using his daily neurotriptaline doses as a new way of controlling him (Eddie is absolutely PETRIFIED at the thought of going rabid). Ironically, his only moments of freedom happen when he’s at work for the Give Back program (his mother’s protests that he’s too frail to do manual labor don’t really hold up under the fact that he’s kind of unkillable now?) where he meets a fellow PDS sufferer who’s an irredeemable trashmouth but who treats him more like a human being than anyone ever has, even counting before he was a literal zombie. And no, Eddie does not think he’s fucking funny. He doesn’t.

Featuring:

- Beverly supplying Eddie with DIY neurotriptaline she learned how to make from the ULA website so he can get out from under his mother’s thumb, which he accepts after an hour-long tirade about how she doesn’t know if it’s safe or even STERILE (“Eddie, honey, I don’t think we can get infections anymore” “it’s the PRINCIPLE of it, Bev!”)

- Mike showing Stan that all the bird species he saw in the woods when he was alive are still there, and that the Rising didn’t destroy everything good in the world, also introducing him to his secret library

- Bill bringing Georgie to Mike’s farm so he can see and work with the animals (and also so he isn’t in town where someone might mention Audra). Mike is somewhat disapproving of Bill’s not telling Georgie what happened, but he sympathizes, and tries to help both brothers work through their trauma. (Stan eventually convinces Mike that he should be taking care of himself too)

- Ben struggling to convey to Beverly that he genuinely wants to be her friend (and more) and help her (Bev: “Oh wait are you one of those guys who finds the whole ‘undead’ thing hot? Why don’t you go to the PDS brothel then and leave me alone?” Ben: *internal screaming*)

- Richie and Eddie building fences at 1/6th the pace of all the other pairs of Give Back program “volunteers” bc they can’t stop ribbing each other and arguing and also Richie might’ve made it his new-life’s purpose to get Eddie to smile and laugh as much as possible. “Do you even still need glasses, asshat?” “The better to see you with, my Spaghetti” “Don’t fucking call me that”

- turns out Richie and Beverly sort of hunted as a group during the Rising (a la Kieren and Amy) and now they like to get together in the Barrens, get high off sheep brains, and try not to have panic attacks about what they did while unmedicated. Bev confesses that while she hates the slow-drip of returning memories of the Rising, she hopes that one day she’ll remember being the one who killed her husband because that would mean she got her revenge in the end. Richie offers to help her jog her memory by reenacting it with him starring as her husband, but she just laughs and punches him in the arm. “Be glad I can’t feel pain anymore, Marsh, that seemed like it might’ve done some serious damage” “Beep beep, Richie”

- insert that ep 1 scene with Rick’s dad dragging the neighbor’s PDS wife into the street and shooting her, but replace with Bowers killing Adrian Mellon as Bill watches from through the curtains across the street with Georgie’s head tucked into his chest so he can’t see

- Stan slowly coming into his own through what starts off as relatively harmless acts of rebellion against Derry but escalates to all the Losers having a blast vandalizing their own graves. “Honestly Richie, I’m surprised your epitaph wasn’t ‘blessedly silent at last’” “Woah! Stanley gets off a good one!”

- Richie visiting the Kissing Bridge where he was caught halfway carving his name + ??? by Bowers’ crew and was brutally beaten before being thrown into the river. Looking back, it was hardly a crush worth getting killed over, but this time he feels like he’s drowning in his feelings (of fucking course it would feel like drowning) and he’s terrified. Carving a shaky “E” where he never got to finish his declaration last time takes some of the weight off his heart.

- Ben finally getting Beverly to realize that he’s been in love with her since long before the Rising by telling her that he was the one who wrote the anonymous postcard she received a few months before she died, and showing her all the other poems he’d written over the years. “January embers”...

- Bill and Mike helping Eddie gather proof that this mother was responsible for his death by combing through Derry police records and autopsy reports (also hey, turns out you can still detect all those poisonous chemicals in his partially deceased body!) and using it to get him essentially emancipated and his mother arrested. Eddie moves in with Richie afterwards and being in close proximity all the time brings both their feelings to a boil.

- Georgie does eventually remember encountering Bill and Audra during the Rising. “I died, and you lied”. He runs away into the Barrens where he meets a strange PDS sufferer who wears clown makeup instead of the usual flesh-mimicking stuff...

- the creeping emergence of a ULA splinter group led by Pennywise that starts haunting at the edges of Derry and stoking the fires of the townspeople’s fear against the Risen. Eventually they kidnap Georgie to their weird sewer cult dungeon under Neibolt bc they think he’s the First Risen (lol sorry dudes, wrong side of the pond), and the Losers have to gear up and go get him back before a fucking clown EATS HIM to bring about the Second Rising.

Physical appearances:

Eddie: wears his contacts and makeup religiously until he is able to escape his mother, at which point he starts to let loose a bit (it helps that Richie says he’s still adorable, even tho Eddie would never admit to that). He has a gash in his cheek and a huge puncture wound straight through his chest, both of which he sustained during the Rising.

Richie: wears glasses even tho he doesn’t technically need to anymore. Gave up on the whole makeup thing pretty early bc it was a pain to apply, but he does sometimes wear the colored contacts when he’s out and about for the Giveback Program. He’s covered in cuts and blue/purple bruises that he sustained in Bowers’ attack, and has a big nasty stitched-up gash just above his hairline from hitting his head on a river rock.

Beverly: makeup and contacts whom? She has a pretty conspicuously hand-shaped bruise around her neck that she tends to cover with scarves tho

Stan: wears the makeup and contacts, but is much better at making them look natural than Eddie is. Matching scars on each wrist that he keeps covered all the time. A bullet hole in his side from the Rising.

Georgie: wears the makeup and contacts. Missing an arm (injury sustained during the Rising)

#it steven king #In the Flesh #reddie #stanlon #benverly #writing ideas #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #ben hanscom #beverly marsh #mike hanlon #stanley uris #bill denbrough #georgie denbrough #i wrote all this in the Notes app at 3am bc the idea possessed me like some sort of benevolent fanfic demon #not art

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imagine-loki · 7 years ago

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A Warrior’s Life

TITLE: A Warrior’s Life

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter One Hundred and Seven

AUTHOR: wolfpawn ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Viking Loki coming to your village, raiding, and pillaging, before deciding there is something about you that intrigues him and deciding to take you back to Asgard with him. There, you are forced to learn a new life and language, and though you hate what has happened to you, you learn that Loki is not as bad as you think.

RATING: Mature

NOTES : So, as stated already, Brian Boru was the first undisputed High King of Ireland, he defeated the Vikings in battle and was all and all, one bad ass and brutal man. Domhnall (pronounced Do-nal and as many would recognise the name from the lovely Domhnall Gleeson who plays Hux as well as Bill Weasley among other things) was indeed one of his sons.

Maebh, Loki and Thor sat analysing the men in front of them, who, in turn, were analysing them. Behind them, Thodin and Nafi would not be forced from the room.

‘Are they not young for this?’ One of the men asked, indicating to the boys.

‘No.’ Thor answered bluntly, the men looked at the two others in question.

‘Thodin,’ Maebh indicated to her nephew, who nodded at the mention of his name. ‘Is the future king of Asgard. As you can tell from his appearance, he is Thor’s son.’ She then indicated to Nafi. ‘Nafi is the future king of Svartalfheim, and he is our son.’ Nafi nodded, though he scoffed slightly as the men looked at the boy and then to her in confusion. He did not know what Midgardian words Maebh had spoken exactly, but there was no denying their meaning. ‘As two future kings, and as men, they are very much encouraged to be here, regardless of the language spoken.’

‘They are fine youngsters, and no doubt will be formidable warriors and rulers.’ Lord Brendain stated.

Maebh folded her arms and stared at him. ‘Lord Brendain I am not sure if you are overplaying because of fear or because you want to lull me into a false sense of security, but regardless, I am in no mood for either of such. I have dealt with too many of my old realm’s men of late, in fact, I have to say merely speaking this tongue makes me want to wound something terrible, with a force not befitting this conversation.’

‘Understandable, of course.’ Brendain gulped. ‘We hear stories of what was done to you and your daughter in Laigin, the anger and indeed resentment you feel is very just, but we truly mean no malice or harm, we only want peace.’

‘All say they want peace, but when have you ever truly seen it?’ Thor commented.

‘Peace is an ideal, it is not always possible, but we should strive for it nonetheless, hence why we are here today to speak with you.’ Brendain stated.

Thor looked to Loki and Maebh, the second of which, gave a slight nod. ‘Maebh believes that your Boru is a man worth considering listening to and you claim to have terms, let us speak of them, and see if we can arrange a truce.’

‘Thank you.’ The lord bowed before he turned to the man next to him. ‘This is Domhnall mac Briain.’

Maebh sized up the man introduced to them. ‘Are you a son or a brother of Boru?’

‘Son.’ The man confirmed.

‘Part of me is suspicious, this can be interpreted two ways as far as I can see. That your father instilled a great deal of faith in you, wanting you to be to the fore of these discussions, or that you are the one he can sacrifice to here, and were we to slaughter you, permit his coming here with an army.’ Maebh stated.

The men gathered looked at each other in terror. ‘I swear to you, I am not here for a fight, quite the opposite. My wife is on Midgard, she will birth our first soon, I want to make it back to her as swiftly as possible.’ Domhnall explained.

‘I know that feeling.’ Loki declared. ‘I too have walked into the home of a sworn enemy, my wife heavy with my child, and me anxious to return home to her. Let us see if we can get you home in time. I was somewhat disappointed I did not.’

‘Did the talks take a long time?’ The Midgardian prince asked.

‘No, not overly. The stab wound I took from those who thought to doublecross the King of Svartalfheim and us, took longer than I would have liked to heal.’ The men’s eyes widened, looking for a moment to Nafi, having been told that he would be king of that realm. ‘So, if this is truly a peace talk, we can ensure that.’

Nodding, the men sat in a more relaxed manner, and they began to discuss matters that would need to be ironed out between the two sides to make such agreements work. After a time, the Warriors entered the room and gave a nod to Loki, Thor and Maebh, telling the trio that the nearby area had been scoured for possible surprise attacks, but nothing had been found. When the men gathered looked at the other Aesir worried, Maebh unashamedly admitted to them what was occurring, though mildly insulted, the men understood the reasoning for such. By the end of the day, those gathered were able to come to agreement on most everything. With the men given a place to rest for the night, they were invited to eat with Loki and Thor’s families. Though Nafi and Anna were supposed to return to Svartalfheim, they agreed to wait until after the Midgardians left, if for nothing other than to see what was agreed to report it to Ásvaldr and keep the other king in the loop of the situation with Asgard.

The men watched in awe as the Aesir families sat together, the notably sized brood of the Ulaidh born princess and the Aesir prince being the first thing they noticed. ‘Is there….how many children had you that so many survived?’ Domhnall asked in awe as the twins sat beside one another, both eyeing the foreigners warily, Kushtrim not letting Danu out of his sight.

‘Only two were lost, one before birth, another to disease.’ Maebh stated solemnly, thinking of her unborn daughter and beloved Liulf.

‘Just two, in that many years?’

Loki looked to his wife for an explanation. ‘On Midgard, more than two making it to adulthood is noteworthy.’ She explained.

‘I see. Having heard from Maebh what you call childbirth care is, what we would call, barbaric. You see it as sordid and filthy when it is the most honourable and great thing a woman can do. On this land, should a woman die during or because of it, she is automatically welcomed to Valhalla in the same manner as a fallen warrior.’ Loki explained. The men stared blankly at him. ‘Valhalla, it is…..what did you call it?’ He looked to his wife.

‘Heaven, they call it heaven. And if a woman died in childbirth, she is not seen as any great fallen martyr and the child cannot be buried on sacred ground, it can only be dumped like a dead animal.’ She explained. The Aesir stared at her in disgusted shock.

‘Is this true?’ Sif looked at the man that spoke Aesir in utter horror.

‘I, well, the child is unbaptised, so it is not deemed a child of God.’ Lord Brendain explained, though highly sheepishly.

‘Norns, I have never heard something so horrific.’ Frigga had been silent for the most part, unhappy with Midgardians having been so rude as to merely turn up for talks rather than checking with a messenger.

‘They also stab old women, I would not put such an act passed them.’ Vali stated, glaring at the men from beside his grandmother.

The men, bar Lord Brendain, did not know what Vali had said, they did, however, get the general gist with the tone he was using. Domhnall asked Brendain to translate, Maebh saving him the bother and did so before the Midgardian Lord could recall the words. ‘What can I say, my children cannot let go of the actions again our family just yet, perhaps they will with time, Frigga will never walk unaided again, her life has been shortened by this, she is the matriarch of this family and none of us can truly forgive what happened her, or the good men that fought and died to protect us the day Danu and I were taken from here, they were not warriors or fighters, yet they tried regardless.’ She explained unapologetically as Einar began to fuss for some milk. ‘You also are about to learn something else of here, we are not as prudish as you. This is not going to be done to offend you, it is simply timing on my son’s behalf and I am not finished eating.’ The men went from frowning to wide-eyed as Maebh moved her dress enough to allow Einar to feed from her. Loki and Thor looked on with amused faces, the children with confused ones and the men gasped and winced.

Mother?’ Kushtrim looked at her worriedly. ‘What are they doing?’

‘No one has harmed them.’ Anna commented.

‘It is because I have the audacity to feed Einar here.’ The children looked amongst themselves, failing to see the issue. ‘Midgardians see such things as sordid, to be done in private.’

‘But…..he has to eat.’ Danu commented.

‘Did you not say that that is why girls have them and not men?’ Vali asked.

‘Yes, but to men who embrace the God that these men have embraced, women are subservient and are required to act in a manner that does not tempt men.’ Maebh explained.

‘How is feeding a baby tempting men?’ Modi asked, utterly confused by the situation.

‘Because some men feel that their urges need be justified by the actions of a woman. Women are seen as the downfall of man, and need to be treated as such.’

‘According to whom do these women lead to the downfall of men?’ Sif asked curiously. They knew of the God that Maebh had been raised on, but they seldom asked of the teachings and ways of the God and life she had lived before she came to Asgard.

‘Men, ironically enough.’

‘There is little shock in that, is there?’ Thor scoffed, looking at the men. ‘Here, women are accepted for what they bring to our people. They are capable of something men cannot do. They grow and birth our children, an act as good as the strength of the Gods themselves, they can farm, tend homes, weave nets, cook, teach and even, scarily enough, tend to accounts, as such, they are not subservient to the men they marry and a nursing mother is the earthly depiction of the Goddesses of life and childbirth. Though Maebh does hold a title on Midgard now I believe, of an old Goddess.’

Brendain cleared his throat, his eyes very much looking everywhere bar at Maebh. ‘Yes, well, we have heard such, and talk of a raven….’ He paused when Danu sneered and pointed up. The men looked up to see Morrigan on the beam above them, having been there the entire time, watching them closely. ‘Oh, God.’ The man blessed himself.

‘So it is true….’ Domhnall stated. ‘You invoke the old Gods?’

‘I invoke no one, though I believe they seem to act as though they work through me.’ She smiled, sitting Einar up to wind him. As soon as she did, he reached for Loki, making small attempts to get to his father. Smiling at his son lovingly, Loki took him and winded him, Einar dozing off again as he did, leaning in against his father, surrounded by his natural scent, something that settled Einar every time. The men frowned again at that. ‘Men here are aware of what their offspring look like before they reach puberty.’ She informed them after placing herself inside her dress again. ‘You really have no idea the drastic and severe chasm of difference there is between these two lands, and while you think that this one is barbaric and uncouth, please be reminded that that sentiment is shared and reversed to you on this one. All peoples tend to see themselves as better than others and the most advanced, and any that differ from that are wrong and less enlightened, but in truth, there are many ways to skin a rabbit, as long as the rabbit is skinned, not many of them can be accused of being wrong, can they, but those who do not agree with others ways of doing it more often than not tell them they are wrong.’

The men remained silent, thinking over her words as Domhnall analysed her more. ‘You are seen as an equal here?’

‘No, for there are none to equal her here.’ Thor scoffed, causing Loki to laugh also.

‘But you are a man’s equal?’ Maebh nodded. ‘What age are you? You do not seem overly old, your youngest is not more than two months.’

‘I am, on my last recollection, not yet three decades. I was brought here when Nafi was five, and I was just two decades, he is now thirteen, you do the math.’ She smiled.

‘On Midgard, as you know, for a man to speak that wisdom, he often studies for years at a monastery.’

‘Yes, that is because he is a man, were he a woman, he probably would have been born with it.’ She grinned, causing Thor to bellow in laughter and Loki to be forced to translate for the rest of the family, who laughed along with him and Thor.

#loki #other #submission #submitted fic #a warrior's life #wolfpawn #viking au #village #raiding #pillaging #intrigues #chapter 107

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premimtimes · 7 years ago

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In tears, 80-year-old Mama Abiri undressed. Before strangers, family, and friends alike, Mama clasped her frail breasts, and cried inconsolably, naked. With emotions only a mother could express, Mama cried in the native Ijaw language of the Niger Delta creeks. Mama was calling on Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, to feel her pain and hear her plea.

“Please, I am begging. Please, pity me. Anyone that is holding my son, please release him for me,” Mama cried. “I gave birth to him. I breastfed him. I know my son. He is not a militant. He is not a criminal. He is a journalist.”

For almost two years, Jones Abiri has not been seen nor heard from. Married with a wife and five children, Jones would have celebrated his 50th birthday on June 4 this year. Jones was a 300-Level student aspiring for his first degree in Law from the National Open University of Nigeria. All that is in the past.

Now, Mr Abiri remains in a state of forced disappearance as the State Security Service (SSS), Nigeria’s secret police, has detained him for over 700 days without trial, and without access to his family, lawyers, and doctors. Under international human rights law, a person is a victim of (en)forced disappearance if detained by state authorities or a third party with the authorisation of the state, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person’s whereabouts and condition in a bid to deny the victim the protection of the law.

The Arrest

On July 21, 2016, a dozen heavily-armed agents of the self-styled Department of State Services arrested Mr Abiri, the publisher of Weekly Source newspaper, outside his office at 288 Chief Melford Okilo Expressway, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. Eyewitnesses said the SSS agents, who came in three cars, did not read him his rights and did not produce a warrant before handcuffing him, raiding his office, and taking him into custody.

“Some men wearing black came to where we were and asked if he was Jones,” Garba Suleiman, a local provision store vendor who witnessed the arrest said in pidgin English.

“He said yes, and they grabbed him, handcuffed him, and took him. Nobody knew why.”

John Angese, the chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists in Bayelsa State, in an interview in March recalled how at gunpoint the SSS threatened everyone, including journalists, not to cross a parameter line. The SSS spent hours searching Mr Abiri’s office before carting away his computer and documents, sealing his office, and taking him handcuffed into custody.

“I was personally there when he was taken away. I tried to ask what was the problem but I was rebuffed with their guns. I was threatened to be shot if I went any closer. Everybody was scared,” Mr Angese recalled.

Two days after his arrest, the SSS on July 23, 2016 released a statement alleging Mr Abiri is a militant named General Akotebe Darikoro, operating under the nom-de-guerre, General Kill and Bury, the leader of the Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force, “which has been furthering separatist tendencies in connivance with other criminal gangs in the Niger Delta region”.

Ziboimo Abiri Jones

Abiri’s wife

The SSS said the detainee “confessed and owned up” to vandalising and bombing oil pipelines belonging to international oil companies Agip and Shell in early July 2016, sending threat messages to management of both oil companies demanding a total of N750 million payment, threatening to launch missile attacks against the Presidential Villa and selected targets in Abuja, and masterminding the rumour in 2016 that the military was planning a coup against President Muhammadu Buhari.

Weekly Source, a local tabloid which operated by mostly sourcing and publishing critical stories of the government culled from online and national newspapers, had in its last edition dated July 10, 2016 published as its lead a story originally published by the online pointblanknews.com titled “Rumble In The Military: Inside The Coup Plot Story… Militants’ Warning Alters Plot.”

The story elaborated an alleged conspiracy that top military officers working with politicians had approached the Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force (JNDLF) militant group to intensify bombing pipelines as a justification to overthrow President Buhari. The military denied the allegations.

Weekly Source in the same edition published another story sourced from pointblanknews.com on how President Buhari’s loyalists, including the Director-General of the SSS, were blocking investigations into an oil and gas company implicated by the anti-graft Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in siphoning billions of dollars in fraudulent oil deals. The story claimed that the company donated heavily towards President Buhari’s 2015 presidential campaign through the loyalists.

Jackson Ude, the publisher of pointblanknews.com based in the U.S., in an interview in 2016 said he had received threats, from proxies of the SSS, asking him to pull down stories from his website which local based journalists like Mr Abiri were re-publishing in their newspapers and tabloids. He said he had been warned of possible arrest whenever he came to Nigeria.

The ‘Confession’

In August 2016, Mr Abiri’s family filed a fundamental rights enforcement lawsuit against the SSS, asking the Bayelsa State High Court to declare his arrest and continued detention without trial unconstitutional, unlawful, illegal, null and void, and order the SSS to release him on bail, and direct the SSS to open Weekly Source newspaper’s office.

The SSS in response tendered as its only evidence in court a confessional statement allegedly written and signed by Mr Abiri on the same day of his arrest, admitting to “being the founder, co-ordinator and spokesperson” of the militant group and “directing his foot soldiers (still at large) to carry out bombings of oil pipelines” and blackmailing oil companies for money with threats of further bombings.

Mother o Abiri Jones

On September 7, 2016, a Bayelsa State high court judge, Nayai Aganaba, ordered the SSS to reopen Weekly Source newspaper’s office but ruled that the SSS arrest and continued detention of Mr Abiri, then almost two months, was lawful. The ruling effectively gave legal backing for the SSS to continue detaining him without charge for almost two years and without access to his family, lawyers and doctors.

“The offence of terrorism and related offences for which [Mr Abiri] was arrested and detained is a capital offence by virtue of Section 1 (2) under paragraph (h) of the Terrorism Prevention Amendment Act 2013 and by virtue of Section 35 (7) of the 1999 Constitution, the arrest and detention of [Mr Abiri] by the [SSS] is therefore not unlawful,” Mr Aganaba ruled.

The SSS also swore on oath that the “seeming delay in charging [him] to court” was due to “ongoing efforts to arrest other members of the militant group” as well as results of “scientific analysis of evidence” still been awaited. The SSS promised “to ensure an expedited conclusion of investigation on the case and to charge [him] and his accomplices to court without undue delay”.

It is almost two years and Mr Abiri, a husband, father of five children, and breadwinner for his family including an 80-year-old mother and several siblings, has not been charged to court.

In the past two years, the SSS has rebuffed all efforts by Mr Abiri’s family, lawyers, journalists and civil society actors to get any information on him.

In June, during the International Press Institute World Congress held in Abuja, Garba Shehu, spokesperson to President Buhari, sold to the world that Mr Abiri is not a journalist but a militant who remains a “guest of [the SSS] because of his alleged criminal activities.” The Information minister, Lai Mohammed, also echoed a similar claim.

John Angese NUJ Chairman Bayelsa State

Nigerian authorities also declined to allow Mr Abiri’s wife and son who travelled from Bayelsa State to Abuja access to see him in SSS captivity.

In the past two years, the family relocated from Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital, to the village in the Southern Ijaw local government creeks where they barely survive on petty farming and handouts. In the past two years, his children also dropped out and have not gone back to school due to the family’s inability to pay school fees.

In the past two years, his younger brother, Ebikesayi Abiri, died from fire burns he sustained in 2017 after he involved himself for the first time in illegal oil bunkering which his family said was in a bid to raise money to pay among other things legal costs and other bills associated with getting Mr Abiri released. Ebikesayi left behind a widow and two children, one of whom was born the same day he died.

Curiously, in the past two years, the SSS and Nigerian authorities have also kept hidden from the public and refused to act on vital information relating to members and financiers of the Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force militant group, according to Mr Abiri’s alleged confessional statement dated July 21, 2016 in court records.

“The only person that has funded the group to the best of my knowledge is the former commissioner of Ijaw National Affairs, Dr Felix Tuodolo, who gave us the sum of N500, 000 through Sele Dise sometime between 1st and 15th June 2016,” Mr Abiri allegedly wrote in his confessional statement. “Sele told me that the commissioner called him on phone and gave him the money to support the group.”

Mr Tuodolo is at present the Special Adviser on Ijaw national affairs to Seriake Dickson, the governor of the oil-rich Bayelsa State. The former state commissioner is well known as a human rights activist and the founding president of the influential Ijaw Youth Council which was set up at the twilight of Nigerian military dictatorship to coordinate the Ijaw people’s struggle for self-determination and greater control of vast oil and gas resources in the Niger Delta region.

Mr Tuodolo was influential in stemming the tide of militancy in the 2000s by advocating for the government to grant amnesty to known militant warlords and their camps in a Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration programme in exchange for assurances of a stop to the destruction of oil installations. The militants who ostensibly repented and surrendered their arms were given huge government contracts, placed on regular stipend running into billions of naira yearly, and sponsored around the world for training in diverse skills acquisition and education programmes.

Mr Abiri in his alleged confessional statement mentioned Sele Dise, Ebi John, Justice Tare and Ebi-Ladei as other members of the JNDLF militant group. Independent findings during this investigation, including obtaining communication exchanges between Mr Abiri and an individual believed to be Sele Dise, revealed both had been friends prior to Mr Abiri’s arrest in July 2016.

“Sometime February this year 2016, Mr Sele Dise came to my office with the idea that let us form the organisation. I don’t know what they [other members] do for a living but I know Sele is a 200-Level student of Public Administration in Niger Delta University [Bayelsa State],” the statement read.

When contacted, Mr Tuodolo said he was only aware from media reports that Mr Abiri is a journalist but that he does not know him personally nor the details of his arrest. He said as a prominent Ijaw leader, he often renders financial assistance to his kinsmen who regularly solicit his help to pay school fees, house rent, and other financial support, but not to fund militant activities.

Mr Tuodolo expressed shock over Mr Abiri’s alleged confessional statement linking him as a financier of the Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force militant group.

“I don’t even know Jones Abiri. This is the first time I am hearing about this that Jones Abiri made a statement involving my name. That sounds strange to me,” he said in a telephone call in June this year. “And if indeed he made such statement, why hasn’t the SSS come to question me about it? I have never been invited.”

Mr Tuodolo’s claim has not been independently verified as efforts to get the SSS to react to Mr Abiri’s case and other instances of human rights violations, including indefinite detentions, torture, and extra-judicial killings, have repeatedly been ignored over the years.

Since 2015, the agency has been operating without a physically identifiable spokesperson or official contact to interface and respond to information requests from the public and the media. Press statements distributed by the SSS cite as its spokesperson one Tony Opuiyo, a fictitious character whom no one has met, several journalists who cover the defence and security beat have said. The journalists complained that during parades of crime suspects, the SSS does not permit them to ask questions and many times hinder their reporting factually through intimidation and threat of arrests.

“The way the SSS operates now is we can’t ask for information and get it. There is no spokesperson, no one to make enquiries on behalf of the public who we are reporting for. No one to hold accountable. It is serious. Even in court, many of the cases, they disturb us from covering,” said one journalist during an informal chat during this investigation.

Ayebaitari Easterday, the chairman of newspaper publishers in the state, in March said Mr Abiri whom he had known for over 20 years as a law-abiding citizen was on medication for an undisclosed ailment at the time of his arrest. He said the liability of responsibility lies on the SSS to disprove rumours of his death.

“I don’t want to believe Jones is dead because you can only believe what you’ve seen and what you know is true,” said Mr Easterday. “The SSS should declare the condition of Jones Abiri, where he is right now, what is the state of his health, and why they have refused to prosecute him over the years. Something should be told to the public. We are curious. We want to know. And we have a right to know.”

Ex-SSS Detainee Narrates Experience

Comrade (name withheld), a Niger Delta Ijaw activist whose identity is being protected for his safety, said he met Mr Abiri in SSS custody while detained for nearly two years on allegations of being a militant. Comrade said that before his release in 2017, he was detained with over 50 Ijaw and Niger Delta youth, numerous Boko Haram suspects and members of the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) secessionist group, who were all routinely tortured at the SSS Headquarters in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.

“We were all together for over one year so we knew ourselves. I was in New Depot detention facility while Jones was in Old Depot. I remember one particular day Jones was shouting: “They wan go beat me again. They wan go beat me again.” It pained me so much I cried,” Comrade said.

Early 2016, the government declared an influential ex-Niger Delta militant commander, Government Ekpemupolo, popularly called Tompolo, wanted. The anti-graft agency, EFCC, froze his bank accounts, and began an unsuccessful manhunt for the former warlord after he refused to appear before a court to answer corruption charges over contracts obtained from the previous government of President Goodluck Jonathan.

His supporters alleged a ploy by the government to arrest and indefinitely detain the former warlord seen by many as a very influential folk hero in the Niger Delta. They cited with examples several ongoing cases where the SSS continues to refuse to obey Nigerian and international court orders granting the release on bail to several high-profile suspects in SSS custody.

Militant groups responded to the government’s clamp down with renewed bombings of oil installations. Security agencies, in an unsuccessful bid to flush him out, arrested scores of Niger Delta activists and youth perceived as sympathetic to the former militant leader.

Comrade said Mr Abiri told him he was set up by powerful people who capitalised on the government’s clampdown in the Niger Delta to punish him for publishing a story that exposed how their company, which was a local contractor to Agip [international oil company], failed to fulfil its corporate social responsibility to oil-producing host communities.

“His article led Agip to find out that their company was shortchanging the communities and this caused problems for them. They were angry and then petitioned the security agencies that Jones is the media handler to militant groups and that was how he was picked up,” Comrade said Mr Abiri told him.

SSS ‘Above The Law’

Comrade said suspects in SSS custody were habitually tortured. In tears, he narrated how the SSS at different times used beating, electrocution, and exposure of radiation to his testicles to force him to confess being a militant. Comrade quoted his case officer as once telling him “the DSS is above the laws of the land. DSS only listens to the instruction of Mr President. Anything short of that, including court orders, you are just wasting your time.”

Femi Falana, a foremost human rights lawyer, wrote an open letter to President Buhari in December 2017 asking him to end the illegal arrest and detention without legal justification of Nigerians and foreigners by security agencies, especially the SSS, which he described an embarrassment to the country by its continued violation of the Nigerian constitution, the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights Act, and the Nigerian Administration of Criminal Justice Act.

“From the information at our disposal, the DSS has detained several Nigerians and foreigners to settle personal scores,” Mr Falana said to President Buhari. “Others have been arrested and detained by the DSS on the suspicion that they have committed criminal offences, a matter that is within the purview of the Police and the anti-graft agencies. To compound the illegality of such arrest and detention, the orders made by competent courts of law directing the DSS to either release or produce detainees in court have been treated with contempt.”

In the past three years since President Buhari appointed Lawal Daura, his kinsman from Katsina State, as SSS director general, the agency’s mode of operations has been reminiscent of past Nigerian military dictatorships, which created the organisation and deployed it with impunity to intimidate, indefinitely detain without charge, and habitually torture individuals, including journalists, activists, and political figures, deemed critical of the military government.

Under Mr Buhari’s rule as military Head of State in the 80s, the SSS, then known as the National Security Organisation, became an agency of repression and a crack violator of human rights. Mr Buhari promulgated and implemented several laws, including Decree 2 which granted the SSS arbitrary powers to indefinitely detain any person without charges, and Decree 4 which provided imprisonment to any person who published any information deemed false or ridiculed his government.

Leading to the 2015 general elections, the SSS under former President Jonathan had become politically partisan, targeting journalists, activists and political opponents, including Mr Buhari and his political party. Mr Buhari while campaigning said he had become a reformed democrat and, if elected, promised to uphold the rule of law, respect fundamental rights, and ensure access to justice for all Nigerians.

Yet, in the past three years, the SSS has been heavily criticised for operating with utmost secrecy, crass impunity, and total disregard for the rule of law, including serially disobeying court orders and violating federal laws in lopsided recruitment to favour people from President Buhari’s part of Nigeria.

Mr Abiri’s ordeal as a persecuted journalist represents possibly hundreds of people detained and tortured across all the offices of the SSS in Nigeria’s 36 States and the federal capital Abuja. Mr Falana, in an interview in June 2018, said Nigeria’s terrorism law is being abused by the SSS to violate Mr Abiri’s and other citizens’ rights to personal liberty and fair hearing in a competent court within a reasonable time.

“Subject to obtaining a court order, section 27 of the Terrorism Act permits a detention for 90 days which, subject to review, can be renewed once for another period of 90 days. Afterwards you have to release the suspect. Either conditionally or unconditionally, you grant the suspect bail,” Mr Falana said.

A global advocacy effort from the media, Nigerian and international human rights defenders, civil society, and social impact groups calling for Mr Abiri’s release is mounting. The Ondewari Health, Education and Environmental Project, a civil society group working in the Niger Delta creeks, took the lead in March by gathering signatures from several Ijaw communities which was sent to local and international human rights organisations as an appeal calling on the international community to intervene on the detainee’s plight.

On a visit into Bayelsa State’s creeks, several youth and elders from different Ijaw communities refuted the government’s allegation that the detainee is a militant. In a show of solidarity with the Abiri family, community members gathered to sign OHEEP’s petition as a single voice echoing their growing frustration and anger with the government. Resonating loudest among the pleas directed at President Buhari were those of Mr Abiri’s children calling for the release of their father.

“My father is a journalist. All the allegations against my father that he is a militant are lies,” said 16-year-old Abadeifa Abiri Jones, with eyes red and swollen from flowing tears. “He did not do anything and he does not know anything. The government should release my father unconditionally.”

SPECIAL REPORT: How Buhari’s govt detained Nigerian journalist for two years without trial In tears, 80-year-old Mama Abiri undressed. Before strangers, family, and friends alike, Mama clasped her frail breasts, and cried inconsolably, naked.

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