He stated, “When they could not succeed, they met me and wanted me to persuade him to agree to sign his death warrant and I told them off.”
Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, who is lead counsel to human rights activists, Omoyele Sowore and Olawale Bakare, has said that the Nigerian Government reached out and proposed a deal during Sowore’s first 45 days in detention.
Falana stated this on Monday while appearing on a programme on TVC, a popular television station in the country.
He said, “They went to a court behind us and got an order to detain Sowore for 45 days to investigate his alleged terrorism.
“At the end of the investigation, nothing was found but they went to him in detention to reach a deal.”
Falana added that the Department of State Services also reached out to him so as to convince Sowore when they could not persuade the journalist to take the deal he was offered.
He stated, “When they could not succeed, they met me and wanted me to persuade him to agree to sign his death warrant and I told them off.”
Falana explained that the intelligence agency “filed charges” against Sowore when they could not convince him to take the deal.
Sowore and his co-defendant Olawale Bakare are accused of cyberstalking President Buhari and planning to bring down his regime by inciting Nigerians against the government.
Sowore was arrested in Lagos on August 3, 2019 for calling on Nigerians to take to the streets in peaceful demonstrations to demand a better country from President Buhari’s administration.
Despite two court orders calling for his release on bail, he remains in detention after being briefly set free on Thursday before rearrested on Friday in court.