Sowore’s detention: Nigerian government and the anxiety of national security

BY ABAYOMI OGUNSANYA

It is nearly a month since the illegal arrest and detention of Omoyela Sowore by the Nigerian secret police, the DSS, and while the matter is now in court, there is very little to suggest that the human rights activist and former presidential aspirant would be released soon. Like Ibraheem El-Zakzaki, leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (an organization recently proscribed by the government), and Col. Sambo Dasuki, former National Security Adviser, Sowore’s detention is being justified under the rubric of ‘national security.’ He has been accused of teaming up with Nnamdi Kanu, the fugitive leader of Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (another proscribed group), and Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaki, to topple the Nigerian government, and he is, therefore, seen as a terrorist and a security risk, hence his detention. Sowore had called for a non-violent protest that was scheduled for August 5 under the banner of #RevolutionNow but two days to the beginning of the event, he was arrested and detained.

Sowore’s unlawful arrest and detention have, once again, brought to the fore the issue of ‘national security’ under which the present administration appears to categorize anything or individual or group it deems to be inimical to, or capable of jeopardizing, peace and security of the country. For example, the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, a Shi’a Islamic sect, has been branded a terrorist organization and was proscribed by the Federal Government following a succession of protest activities by the sect to demand the release of its leader Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaki and wife who have been in detention since 2016. The continued detention of El-Zakzaki is a matter of national security, the government has said, and this is because the cleric has been scheming to ‘turn Nigeria into an Islamic state.’ Sowore’s call for Revolution is also an act of terrorism, the government has said, and it is very much in the same category as all the other accusations brought against everyone that is seen as an enemy of the Nigerian state—Nnamdi Kanu, Ibraheem El-Zakzaki and wife, Col. Sambo Dasuki, and everyone else being held under the rubric of national security.

For General Muhammadu Buahri’s regime, national security is subordinated to the rule of law in the overall scheme of things. On Sunday 26 August 2018 during the Annual Conference of the Nigeria Bar Association, President Muhammadu Buhari, who was guest of honour at the occasion, made the following statement while declaring the conference open: ‘…Rule of law must be subject to the supremacy of the nation’s security and national interest. Our apex court has had cause to adopt a position on this issue in this regard and it is now a matter of judicial recognition that where national security and public interest are threatened or there is a likelihood of their being threatened, the individual rights of those allegedly responsible must take second place, in favour of the greater good of society…’ Since that statement was made, what has become manifestly clear is that the Buhari administration has done very little to uphold and apply the rule of law at certain critical junctures in the administration’s engagements with certain entities, groups and personalities in the polity. The president’s statement about the supremacy of ‘the nation’s security and national interest’ over the rule of law is a summation of his administration’s stance on the rule of law and an indication of the fact that the president is a sham, totally unfit for that much vaunted claim that he is a ‘reformed democrat.’ When that statement was made last year, one Senior Advocate of Nigeria and former lawmaker who sought but failed to become the next governor of Oyo State, Niyi Akintola, publicly defended the president’s view, saying that the rule of law should be suspended for one year! Shysters of Niyi Akintola’s ilk abound in the judiciary and they are, in part, the reason there is so much impunity, so much disregard for the rule of law and why the president will not flinch from making the sort of statement that clearly indicate his disdain for the rule of law. Like Professor Itse Sagay who had no qualms about defending some of the flagrant abuses of the rule of law by this administration, Niyi Akintola did not only see the irony in defending, as a legal practitioner and former lawmaker, a view that is a throwback to the terrible days of military despotism but also the untenable position of placing the rule of law beneath a nebulous concept like ‘national interest.’ We do not need much disquisition to understand that what the president’s statement means is that the rule of law is not supreme and that its application can be discretional, subject to the whims and caprices of the president since what may be deemed ‘security and national interest’ is open to a wide range of interpretations. But the rule of law is the rule of law; it is about the supremacy of the constitution which is the embodiment of the laws of the land. One of the hallmarks of military rule is the suspension of the constitution and what obtains in a military dispensation is the rule of man rather than the rule of law. It is why a military regime is predicated on making decrees since the constitution is suspended. Indeed, President Buhari’s pronouncement on that Sunday, right before a gathering of people whose duty and professional bailiwick is to interpret the law, amounts to something of a desecration of the Temple of Justice but who am I to complain when that declaration has hardly caused a ripple in the silence of the courtroom!

President Buhari’s administration has been guilty of much gross violation of the rule of law, and this is precisely because of the administration’s belief that the rule of law is not sacred; that it is better to have a land where the people are ruled by the caprice of the leader rather than by law. The great irony, indeed what beggars belief, is that this administration also boasts of having a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and Professor of law as Vice President. If this irony is lost on us, a brief explanation of the implication of President Buhari’s pronouncement should jolt us out of our inertia and make us confront squarely the reality of what may be an unfolding dictatorship. When the rule of law is relegated to the background where so-called security and national interests are concerned, the implication is that the law and the constitution are no longer supreme, some people can be above the law, judicial interpretations can be manipulated (if they are given consideration at all), and an extra-judicial action can be taken, even where the situation is unwarranted of such an action or where no state of emergency is in place. As former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Tom Bingham, once remarked, ‘The hallmarks of a regime which flouts the rule of law are, alas, all too familiar: the midnight knock on the door, the sudden disappearance, the show trial, the subjection of prisoners to genetic experiment, the confession extracted by torture, the gulag and the concentration camp, the gas chamber, the practice of genocide or ethnic cleansing, the waging of aggressive war. The list is endless.’ Some of these characteristics of a regime which does not give due regard to the rule of law have been with us long before President Buhari’s statement, and today, as we seek to draw attention to the illegal detention of Omoyele Sowore, it is important that we decry, as loudly as possible, the extra-judicial detention of citizens whose activities have no bearing on so-called national security. How does calling for a revolution—asking citizens to protest bad governance, as Omoyela Sowore does with #RevolutionNow—an act of terrorism? It is clear that the government is desperate to frame Sowore, hence the need to link him to proscribed organizations and government-designated ‘terrorists.’ This is a strategy that is quickly becoming one of the trademarks of the current administration and a fallout from subordinating the rule of law to ‘national security.’ A case in point, in this regard, is the ongoing travail of Mr. Agba Jalingo, publisher of Cross River Watch. Mr Jalingo was arrested by the police, at the command of the Cross River’s state government, for publishing an article in which he (Mr Jalingo) accused Governor Ben Ayade of approving and diverting N500 million meant for Cross River Microfinance Bank and thereby rendering the bank non-functional. Mr Jalingo promptly sued the police for illegal detention, but the police, knowing that their action is unconstitutional and a flagrant violation of the rule of law, swiftly instituted a four-count charge of treasonable felony, terrorism, cultism, and the disturbance of the public peace against the journalist. Mr Jalingo was also charged for working with the #RevolutionNow movement and Omoyele Sowore to ‘destabilize the government and “undemocratically” force the government of Mr Ayade to end through violent means.’ This pattern of demonizing journalists and everyone who is critical of the government—of yoking together people that have been accused of phantom terrorism—is indicative of the shape of more similar things to come. This is a government that is increasingly paranoid—one that is tottering on the verge of full dictatorship. As Okechukwu Nwanguma of Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre notes “We are back to the era of dictatorship where police will arrest a journalist and detain him indefinitely, acting at the behest of a state governor who finds a report unfavourable.”

It is obvious that, for Buhari and his administration, there is nothing axiomatic about that eternal proverb: what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. That is what you get when the rule of law is subjected to the whim of an individual who considers ‘security and national interest’ more important than the constitution. Those who believe that President Muhammadu Buhari is not exactly the ‘born again democrat’ that his supporters are making him out to be may not be wrong after all. We must insist on the unconditional release of Omoyele Sowore and others in the hold of the DSS in line with the rule of law. The president, and the various state governors, must never be allowed to subvert the rule of law or subordinate it to ‘national interest.’ What they actually mean by ‘national interest’ is nothing but ‘self interest’ and we must never allow that to hold sway.