The Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, has condemned the arrest of activist Omoyele Sowore.
Mr
Sowore, a presidential candidate in the last election, was arrested on
Saturday for calling for a revolution against poor governance.
“Beyond
the word ‘revolution, another much mis-used and misunderstood word,
nothing that Sowore has uttered, written, or advocated suggests that he
is embarking on, or urging the public to engage in a forceful overthrow
of government,” Mr Soyinka said.
He compared the actions of the
security agencies that arrested Mr Sowore to what happended during the
tenure of the late dictator, Sani Abacha.
“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,” Mr Soyinka wrote in a
statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES.
Read the full statement below.
SURELY, NOT AGAIN!!!
Deployment
of alarmist experessions such as “treason”, “anarchist”, “public
incitement” etc. by Security forces have become so predictable and banal
that they have become meaningless. Beyond the word ‘revolution, another
much mis-used and misunderstood word, nothing that Sowore has uttered,
written, or advocated suggests that he is 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 ummons, 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 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!
May I invite 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?
Demonstrations and processions are time honoured, democratic ways of
drawing not only the attention of 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!
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