Skip to main content

Detention Of Sowore, Buhari Regime's Move To Conquer Nigerians, Says Human Rights Lawyer

November 14, 2019

“I am really worried, not because Sowore is suffering but because I am not sure whether Nigeria will survive this administration,” he said.

Image

 

Inibehe Effiong, a human rights lawyer, says the continued detention of pro-democracy activist, Omoyele Sowore, is a clear indication that the President Muhammadu Buhari regime is bent on conquering Nigerians.

Effiong, during an interview with Arise TV said the intimidation of Sowore and other journalists was a political attempt that would unfold soon.

“I am really worried, not because Sowore is suffering but because I am not sure whether Nigeria will survive this administration,” he said.

He stated that Buhari could not claim ignorance of the lawlessness going on in the Department of State Services.

The lawyer explained: “The continued detention of Mr. Sowore and Bakare is a clear relationship that the government of the day is determined to conquer the Nigerian people.

“There is no other way to describe the travesty, the gross impunity. The reckless lawlessness that is going on.”

The lawyer recalled events that happened since the abduction of Sowore from an apartment in Lagos on August 3.

Effiong explained that although the Department of State Services that has kept Sowore in detention for over 100 days initially arrested him and got a court order to detain him based on allegations of terrorism when he was finally charged to court, there were no terrorism charges preferred against him.

He added, “The totality of his arrest and detention ab initio was unlawful."

The security agency has continued to deny that it refused to release Sowore.

In an earlier statement by the DSS, it was claimed that no one came to receive Sowore from its custody.

Effiong dispelled this claim, saying he went in company of the court’s bailiff to submit the release order of Sowore to the DSS but they refused, saying they had closed.

“They [the DSS} will have to release him because we will not sit back and allow this impunity to reign,” the lawyer said.