30th May, 2024
By Taiwo Okanlawon
The National Association of Seadogs, also known as the Pyrates Confraternity has revealed how military involvement contributed to why the association moved its operations out of Nigerian campuses in 1984.
NAS Capoon, Mr. Abiola Owoaje made the revelation in a press conference held on Wednesday 29, 2024 at Radisson Blu Hotel, Lagos.
According to Owoaje, the group which started as a University campus confraternity in the premier university, the University of Ibadan in 1952 had to halt its activities in schools because the military got involved during late General Sanni Abacha’s regime.
Owoaje said the military government created its groups on campuses and linked them with activities of other groups just to implicate them.
“We have a very strong reason why we left higher institutions and the reason was that during the past years and the times in the military, we discovered that the military got so much involved in student activities and they spring up all manners of different groups all over the place that it led to so many infants on campuses,” Owoaje.
“They have things that have nothing to do with us, but we end up being linked to us, so there was a conscious decision in 1984 that we were going to leave all campuses and a press statement was made by that time. We published it in the newspaper that we no longer exist in higher institutions anymore.
“So all the members that we have recruited since then have always been from the general public, not students,” he added.
Speaking on criteria for joining the group, “When we discover they are students, we reject them because we do not want students at all.
“One of the criteria for joining our association is you must provide your NYSC certificate or an exemption certificate, a discharge certificate, or completion of an NYSC certificate. Either one of those two, you must provide something to show that you are no longer a student,” he said.
“Obviously from what you are saying about the demography when you say ‘catch them young’, we still have some young adults who are still applying to join us, it all depends on what part of their life they are, some have just left the university, some maybe they want to work a while before they join us so we have different categories of people like that,” he added.
The National Association of Seadogs, popularly known as the Pyrates Confraternity, is a confraternity organization in Nigeria that is nominally University-based. The group was founded by Professor Wole Soyinka in 1952 by the “Original Seven” to support human rights and social justice in Nigeria.
The mandate of the confraternity was to fight for human rights and social justice in Nigeria. The confraternity would engage in peaceful protests against the Nigerian government and hold an annual colloquium.
NAS has grown into an international organisation with branches in 36 states of Nigeria including the Federal Capital Territory, South Africa, UK, the Republic of Ireland, USA, Japan, The Netherlands, and Canada.