‘You are stoking flames of uprising’ — activists ask police to free Sowore

Some human rights activists have asked Mohammed Adamu, inspector-general of police (IGP), to free Omoyele Sowore. 

Sowore, convener of the RevolutionNow Movement, was arrested in Abuja alongside other activists during a procession on New Year’s eve. 

On Monday, he was arraigned, alongside those arrested with him, at the magistrate’s court in Wuse zone 2, Abuja, on charges of conspiracy, unlawful assembly and incitement. 

The magistrate ordered that the defendants be remanded at the Kuje Correctional Centre pending the hearing of their bail applications.

In a statement on Monday, Adebayo Raphael, Deji Adeyanju Ariyo Dare-Atoye, the rights activists said the rights of Nigerians to peaceful protest is being threatened as the current administration is “stoking flames of uprising.” 

The activists said by now,  the Nigerian government ought to have learnt from the public outrage that defined the #EndSARS protest.

“Increasingly, the fundamental rights of Nigerians to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression are being threatened by the regime of the President of Nigeria, General Muhammadu Buhari. All our civic spaces have shrunk and all pretensions to respect democratic ideals have now been completely abandoned,” the statement read. 

“By arresting Omoyele Sowore and other activists, the Nigerian government is, again, deepening the disenchantment of the Nigerian people and stoking the flames of citizens’ uprising that may have a greater impact on the country’s foundations than the #EndSARS protest. 

“If the people are not free to exercise their fundamental human rights in a so-called democracy, then such a democracy is nothing but a sham and a shame. The regime of General Buhari is increasingly making a mockery of what it means to live in a democratic country, and the president’s inability to rein in the rogue security operatives in the country reeks of his culpability. 

“His continued silence as the commander-in-chief is another proof that all nails that are required to finally hammer the draconian regime to its well-deserved end, have now been affixed to its self-acquired coffin. 

“The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, is hereby admonished to immediately vanquish all false charges of unlawful assembly, criminal conspiracy and inciting public disturbance levelled against Sowore and others immediately, and ensure that Omoyele Sowore and other activists are released unconditionally.”