Operatives of the Department
of State Services, DSS, in the early hours of Saturday arrested Sowore, who is
also the convener of ‘#RevolutionNow’ protests.
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole
Soyinka on Sunday described the arrest of activist, Omoyele Sowore by the
Department of State Security, DSS, as a travesty and violation of the
fundamental rights of citizens to congregate and make public their concerns.
Soyinka said the young
politician has never engaged in any treasonable act as being claimed by the
Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu.
Sowore posted a distress
tweet at exactly 1:25 am with an eyewitness confirming that his phone was
forcefully taken from him.
Reacting, Soyinka, in a
statement, titled: “Surely, Not Again!!!,” said the deployment of alarmist
expressions such as “treason”, “anarchist”, “public incitement” and so on by
security forces had become so predictable and banal that they have become
meaningless.
He said beyond the word
‘revolution,’ another much misused and misunderstood word, nothing that Sowore
had uttered, written, or advocated suggested that he was embarking on, or
urging the public to engage in a forceful overthrow of government.
“Nothing that he said to me
in private engagement ever remotely approached an intent to destabilize
governance or bypass the normal democratic means of changing a government. I,
therefore, find the reasons given by the Inspector-General, for the arrest and
detention of this young ex-presidential candidate totally contrived and
untenable, unsupported by any shred of evidence. His arrest is a travesty and
violation of the fundamental rights of citizens to congregate and make public
their concerns.
“This is all so sadly déjà
vu. How often must we go through this wearisome cycle? We underwent identical
cynical contrivances under the late, unlamented Sani Abacha when he sent
storm-troopers to disrupt a planning session for a similar across-nation march
at Tai Solarin School, Ikenne. This was followed up by a personalized letter
that was hand-delivered by the State Security Services to me under their
summons, at their Abeokuta so-called ‘Annexe’ with near-identical wording to
the threats contained in today’s release from the desk of the Chief of Police.
At least, I was summoned, not subjected to a terrorist midnight arrest. Some
irony!
“The same pattern Pavlovian
conduct manifested itself under yet another supposed democratic ruler who
personally declared that the gathering of civilians to deliberate on and
propose a constitution for the nation was ‘high treason’, and would be resisted
by the full rigour of state power if we persisted. The Inspector-General of
Police mobilized his forces and issued inflammatory proclamations, but PRONACO
went ahead despite all the thundering from Aso citadel. Can the police ever learn anything also their
tear-gassing and brutalizing of grieving mothers who marched peacefully to protest
the deaths of their children in a plane crash inferno?
“Their mission, under that
same regime, which was simply to deliver a letter to the government house in
Lagos, demanding greater safety in airline operations, yet such a rational
intent, born of traumatic circumstances, was quashed on the sidewalks of a
supposed twentieth-century nation.
“And yet again, even a
faceless cabal under yet another civilian regime refused to be left out of the
insensate play of power. A march on Aso Rock calling for an end to governance
by a ghostly entity was slated to be crushed, but fortunately, a conflicting
balance of interests decided in favour of a reduced trajectory of protest. And
so on and on and on, in a nation which continues to speak at once through both
sides of the mouth, spewing out the same Treason monotone, as if this was a
magic incantation that could substitute for the venting of mass feelings, even
as collective therapy,” he said.
Soyinka urged the
Inspector-General to wade through the daily journals of the past few weeks and
months, read and digest the calls by numerous sectors of society – across
professions and national groupings – for demonstrations against the parlous
conditions of society, all identifying ills to which attention must be drawn,
and urgently, through mass action.
According to him,
demonstrations and processions were time-honoured, democratic ways of drawing
not only the attention of the government to ills but of mobilizing the public
towards a proactive consciousness of their condition and thereby exhorting
civil society also to devise means of ameliorating their condition through
their own efforts.
“Religious bodies have
urged such remedies, so have civic associations. The ready recourse to arrests,
incarceration and threats to civilians are ultimately counter-productive. They
alienate the citizens, erode their confidence in governance responsiveness, and
thereby advance the very extremist nightmare that security agencies believe
they are acting to thwart.
“If we cannot learn from
the histories and experiences of other societies, let us at least learn from
ours. Freedom is not so glibly qualified. It cannot be doled out like slops of
charity from soup kitchens. Let the Police stick to their task of protecting
and managing protests, not attempt to place their own meaning and declaration
of intent on bogey words like – revolution,” Soyinka stated.
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