WHO IS AFRAID OF SOWORE?

By Malcom Fabiyi Those who have never met Sowore, imagine him to be a towering giant. They imagine that he would have a loud booming voice, and large feet - very large feet. The reason is simple. Anyone doing what Sowore has consistently done for the twenty (20) years that I have known him i.e., maintaining a principled dedication to enthroning real democracy and demanding accountability from elected (and selected) officials, must possess Herculean features. In a purely physical sense, Sowore is not Herculean by any stretch of the imagination. But when it comes to the matter of personal conviction and the courage to stand firmly on one’s principles, I know for a fact that there are few persons dead or alive that match the towering height of Sowore’s candor and courage. I should know. “Show”, as we called him was students’ union president at the University of Lagos before I took over as his successor. It was therefore not surprising to me that while others have chosen the path of comfort and silence, Sowore, as always, has maintained a commitment to exposing the rot in society. His platform for the last couple of years has been his hard hitting website at www.saharareporters.com. It is Sowore that we have to thank for the 2006 interview with Gbenga Obasanjo that opened the eyes of Nigerians to the internal wrangling within the Obasanjo regime, the maneuverings and positionings for the third term agenda, and the familial dysfunctions of the Obasanjo family. Omoyele Sowore and Jonathan Elendu have probably done the most to develop a new front for Nigerian activism which has now come to be known to the rest of us as “Citizen Journalism”. For the past few weeks, the Nigerian government has been making spirited efforts at shutting Sowore’s operations down. I understand that they have gone about their task with unusual efficiency and devious ingenuity. They have recruited an army of hackers and lawyers to harass and intimidate Sowore. So far, their attempts at intimidating the hosts of the site and the courageous men and women who publish on it have not worked. But the heat and the squeeze are on, and Nigerians must remain vigilant. The recent travails that Nigeria’s citizen journalists have faced should give all Nigerians cause for concern. First, Jonathan Elendu (www.Elendureports.com) and Emeka Asiwe (www.huhuonline.com) disappeared into the gulag of the Nigerian SSS for weeks, accused of compromising “national security”. Since about June 2008, the publishers and editors of the Leadership Magazine in Abuja have been in and out of jail, hounded for their publication of articles that “defamed” some political characters. Not since Abacha’s paranoia driven frenzy of arrests and detentions of activists, journalists and everyone in between, have we seen anything that even remotely comes close to the onslaught that the Yar’Adua government has now unleashed on citizens, and all this is happening in a supposedly democratic country. While the former Chairman of the EFCC is on the run for his life and the former FCT Minister has effectively been hounded into exile; while patriots are hounded off to jail and detention, thieves and rogues who have robbed the country blind strut around boldly, their obscene convoys preceded by police sirens. In a rather bizarre turn of events, their cause is now even being championed by the Assailant General of the Nigerian nation – a comic character by the name of Michael Aondoakaa. The travails that these patriots have to bear is painful and annoying, and we must all be concerned that if such high profile voices are harassed, detained and falsely charged in the manner that these patriots have been, then much worse things could be happening to thousands of smaller voices whose harassment and detention do not catch the public’s attention. If there is a silver lining in this ominous cloud, it is this: in their eagerness to silence all opposition, the Nigerian State and its accomplices have overreached and exposed themselves for who they truly are. The world had gone to sleep satisfied that Nigeria was now a democratic country. We thought it was only in military dictatorships that citizens were arrested, jailed, hounded and harassed. Now, we have been cured of that puerile illusion. In their frenzied attacks on Ribadu, Elendu, Barkindo, Asiwe and Sowore, the hounds have been forced to bare their fangs, and we have seen their vampire teeth. We now know them for who they are. The democratic pretensions of this regime have been exposed and the battle lines for the soul of our nation have now been more firmly drawn. Who is afraid of Sowore? I will ask you to visit www.saharareporters.com and judge for yourself which of the many rogues that are catalogued in Sahara’s wall of infamy has the most to fear from Sowore’s electronic pen. To “Show”, I will say, keep going strong. For your efforts at exposing the falsehoods of our leaders, for the privations you have suffered in this pursuit, for your many struggles and the attendant challenges that come with them, Nigeria is thankful. Someday, those annals that you and patriots like Jonathan Elendu and Emeka Asiwe have compiled, will be the primary pieces of evidence in the case of the people vs. the looters of the common wealth. That much is certain. Aluta continua! Victoria acerta!!

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