August 2019

A Nigerian civil society group known as SERAP is reported to have written to the UN Human Rights Council regarding Sowore. They urged the UN Council to order the Nigerian Government to release Sowore. This is as much a propaganda as Sowore's bogus revolution. The UN Council they refer to will do absolutely nothing in Sowore's case because Nigeria has followed its laws meticulously in the manner they have handled Sowore. We saw the video of the arrest. The suspect was not brutalized when arrested. They did not harass the lady they saw with him in his hotel room. The operatives acted professionally. Otherwise, they would have arrested him with the lady or say something to reveal the identity of the lady to embarrass him. They left the lady alone. They did not brutalize him during arrest. Also, they treated Sowore decently after his arrest. For instance, they flew him to Abuja without placing him in handcuffs. Otherwise, they actually move other suspects by road, handcuffed and blindfolded for the 9 to 10 hours journey through the rough Nigerian roads. But they gave Sowore the best treatment they could afford. Further, since he arrived in Abuja, he has been treated fairly. As one Adeyanju, a friend of Sowore, revealed on his Facebook post, Sowore was given access to friends who were allowed to bring food to him and even take pictures of him in DSS custody. Also, Falana, Sowore's lawyer has confirmed that he has had both telephonic and physical contact with him. So, essentially Sowore has received much better treatment in Nigeria than the Wikileak cofounder, Julian Asenge, has received in the UK. So, what is the special argument that SERAP can make to the UN Council? Also, the detention of Sowore is now pursuant to a valid order by a court of competent jurisdiction. All Sowore's due process rights have been observed and are in tact. Sowore's lawyer has indicated in many public speeches that he would file an application with the courts to secure the release of Sowore. That means an affirmation that Sowore has adequate remedy within the Nigerian legal system and he has not been denied access to the Nigerian courts. And finally, there is no doubt that Sowore is represented by a competent lawyer. Indeed, going by his speeches, Falana is the best lawyer in Nigeria. Do you now understand how silly the effort of SERAP is? It is just noise and smoke without fire. The UN Council may thank them, and they push aside their irrelevant letter. The UN Council has more important things to deal with. They cannot interfere with a properly progressing trial of a treason and terrorism case, where the suspect is represented by the best lawyer in the country. What troubles me really is that SERAP people know all this. Why then did they bother to send a letter to the UN Council and let the world know that on pages of newspaper? The answer is simple. The Nigerian megalomania! Just like the pretended revolution, this is a pretended international law activism. We Nigerians need to save ourselves from this kind of pretence and propaganda.

A question has arisen why Sowore called the protest he planned a revolution. Why use the term 'revolution'? I have a very simple, but shocking answer. And that is: Sowore did not really know the meaning of the term revolution. What Sowore wanted was a massive protest that would shake Nigeria and force the government to make concessions to him the way the Vice Chancellor of University of Lagos used to make concessions to the students union during the time Sowore was a member of the students union. He just wanted to lead the protest by answering the Convener. If you noticed, he often used the same language used by students union leaders in the 90s. Most people who hear of Sahara Reporters do not realize how shallow and how poorly educated Sowore is. Did you realize during the campaign, that apart from throwing slogans around, when he was finally pinned down to a debate, Sowore was empty and totally inarticulate. I am confident that Sowore never sat down to study and understand the meaning of the term revolution. That is why he thought that what happened in Egypt that replaced Mubarak's dictatorship with Morsi's Brotherhood and finally Al Sisi's dictatorship was a revolution to recommend to Nigerians. Sowore was a poor student of geography in Unilag. He spent 100% of his time in Unilag on students unionism and trying to close down the university to postpone exam dates. He came out of the university in the bottom of his class. Sowore's unionism was not of the deeply intellectual nature of Ogaga Ifowodo of Uniben. Ogaga was a student of law and literature, and a poet. Sowore was a poor-performing student of geography who was extremely violent and disruptive and destructive. (Ogaga is now a calm and cool-headed professor of literature in the US) Sowore was also very violent as a student union leader. He participated in raping another student, which caused Mike Okilo, then Commissioner of Police for Lagos to arrest him. Sowore was on bail for the crime of rape when he left for America where he claimed asylum on the pretext that he was a staff of MKO Abiola and that Abacha was after him. While in America, he enrolled in a program in Columbia University, which was a program designed for foreign students. Then he teamed up with one Elendu, who owned the Elendu Report. From there Sowore discovered that people are ready to pay to have their enemies scandalized or to avoid being scandalized.  Sowore wanted to take this new business to the next level by being more aggressive in what they could write, who to write against and how much to charge. When he felt that Elendu was not aggressive enough and that he was not getting what he considered a fair share of the money, Sowore left Elendu Report and established Sahara Reporters. Unlike Elendu who used his name in his writing "Elendu Report", Sowore did not want his name in his own "Sahara Reporters". Because of this, Sowore was able to attack in a more aggressive manner than Elendu because while people knew who was behind Elendu Report, it took over four years before the public were able to know who was behind Sahara Reporters. Indeed, the domain name for Sahara Reporters website was initially registered anonymously under Domainbyproxy. It was during the time Emeka Ugwuonye sued Sowore for defamation that Ugwonye forced Domainbyproxy to provide the name and address of the real owner of Sahara Reporters as Omoyele Sowore, and they dropped Sowore as their client after they received a subpoena from Emeka Ugwuonye. Back to the issue, Sowore did not understand the meaning of the term 'revolution' and he still doesn't understand it. All he wanted was to force the government to recognize him. It was the power and ambition that drove him. He has seen that most people are gullible. He got away  with the manipulation he could cause with Sahara Reporters. He wanted to try something bigger. His ambition and amorality have no limits. So, a revolution sounded like a convenient next step.

It is surreal that Nigerians should rejoice on hearing that three police officers assumed to be on official duty were mistaken for armed robbers and gunned down by Nigerian soldiers. But this is exactly what is happening - many are happy that the policemen were killed by the superior firepower of the military. What is most guaranteed is the reason people rejoice. People are happy because they have been victims of extreme police brutality and depression of the civilian population. Among the things the police are accused of; are taking of bribe, demanding money for bail, unlawful arrest and unlawful detention, extra judicial killings, framing up innocent people, witness tampering, armed robbery and kidnapping. In other words, despite the slogan - "police is your friend",  Nigerians actually see the police as their enemy. This must pose serious problems on several levels. On the level of the society, it is extremely unfortunate to have a police force with so much distrust between it and ordinary members of the society. It is virtually impossible for normal policing work to be done with such level of lack of confidence. This was the problem everybody hoped that Mr. Abubakar, the current Inspector General of Police (IGP) was to address head-on upon his appointment in January of 2019. Unfortunately, despite the fact that one of his first decision in office as the IGP was to appoint Mr. Frank Mba, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, the new police public relations officer, not much else has changed. On the level of Mr. Mba, this is beyond crisis. The image of the police could not be lower and the level of mistrust never higher. Even though Mr.Mba is light years ahead of his roguish predecessor, Mr. Jimoh Moshood, the accumulation of failures during Moshood's period in office still weighs the police pubic relations office down. Mr. Mba has had his missteps, but the current public trading of accusations and counter accusations between the police and the army is the worst ever. There is no doubt that the police leaders have to wake up to the challenge. The problem has not been that they were unaware of these problems. Rather, the problem is that they have  been in a systemic state of denial. Last July, DPA Founder, Emeka Ugwuonye made a number of posts on Facebook pointing to many problems with the police which were eroding public confidence in the police. Rather than welcome an honest criticism, the police landed a heavy-handed persecution of Ugwuonye to the point of fabricating a murder charge against Ugwuonye and covering up the man that was believed to have killed his wife. As at this moment, Nigerian police continue to maintain illegal prisons that contain more inmates than the number of prisoners within the official prison system. And the inmates in the illegal prisons run by the police are detained under  conditions worse than those of slaves in the infamous transatlantic slave ships. Without a fundamental review of the situation, public confidence in the police will continue to erode. Pictures of the slain policemen are shown below.

The DSS, apparently trying to ensure that they followed the Nigerian law in their handling of Sowore case, filed an ex parte application for an order of court to approve detention of Sowore for 90 days. According to the DSS, they would need that time to carry out investigation on the alleged criminal activities of Sowore. It is disturbing to us that as long as 90 days would be needed to conduct any such investigation. It is also disturbing that the suspect (Sowore) should be in detention during the entire period. Anywhere else in the world, that would be considered an unjustified period of investigation during which a suspect would need to be in a pre-indictment detention. You need to know the deference between a pre-indictment detention and pre-trial detention.  Pre-indictment detention is called holding charge in the Nigerian parlance, while pre-trial detention is called awaiting trial. The DSS want a court order to detain Sowore for 90 days before they could file any charges against him. Even though Nigeria allows that kind of procedure, international practice abhors it. The government is expected to be ready with s charge just few hours after arrest, if no arrest warrant was obtained or immediately upon arrest if a warrant of arrest was obtained.  No pre-indictment detentions in developed countries in the present time. However, after charges have been filed, there will be pre-trial detention (bail) application, to determine whether there is a good reason why the person should not be released pending trial. Notice the remarkable difference between advanced counties and Nigeria. In advanced countries, liberty is the default state. So, it is the government that should show why a person accused should not be granted bail. But in Nigeria, loss of liberty is the default state. And, it is the accused person that should show why he should be granted bail. So, it means that once a charge is filed against you in Nigeria and you are arrested, you are as doomed as a tried and convicted person. (DPA is working to change this practice). The position is slightly different if it is a pre-indictment situation, such as Sowore faces right now. In pre-indictment situation, liberty is the default state even in Nigeria. So the government is the one to show why the suspect should be detained. Again, pre-indictment detention is detention pending investigation, which is rarely allowed these days in civilized counties, while pre-trial detention is detention pending trial, which is possible in developed counties in very extremely rare cases. Applications for pre-indictment detentions are usually done ex parte, which is one of the reasons it is considered objectionable. On Tuesday, the DSS filed ex parte application to detain Sowore for 90 days. The ex parte motion by the DSS bears the number FHC/ABJ/CS/915/19. It came before Justice Taiwo Taiwo of Federal High Court sitting in Abuja. Being an ex parte application, it could be immediately worked up to the judge for immediately disposition. In support of their application, DSS attached a video evidence. No one knows exactly what is in the video. The judge reserved his decision till Wednesday, 7th August to enable him view the video. So, there will be a ruling later today. There will be the following possibilities in the awaited decision: 1) The court may decline to make any order for detention of Sowore. If that happens, DSS will have to either release Sowore immediately or charge him immediately and then oppose his bail application. If they charge him immediately, it will still take up to 2 weeks before his bail application will be argued. 2) The court may grant the DSS application for 90 days detention. In that case, Sowore, upon receiving a copy of the order, will file a motion to vacate the order. All that will keep him in detention for at least 6 weeks before before he can regain his freedom. 3) The court may go halfway, which is to grant DSS some time for investigating while Sowore is in custody, the period will be much shorter than 90 days, say 30 days, but may be extended. We think this is the most likely option. One of these 3 options will be confirmed today.  But one mischief remains regardless of the option the court takes, which is that the DSS will have ways to continue to detain Sowore regardless of the decision of the court. We call it a mischief because that is something DPA will like to stop in Nigeria. If Sowore wants to get out sooner, his lawyers need to negotiate with DSS for a deal that will avoid charges being filed. But making a deal with DSS will require him to compromise for the time being. He may not like to eat a humble pie. In any case, Sowore may have the problem of lawyers who may want to use his case for their own crusade. Such lawyers will like to be making inflammatory remarks for publicity. For instance, Femi Falana was reported to have said yesterday that if Sowore was charged he would make Buhari his first witness. If you are not an experienced trial lawyer, you may be tempted to find solace in such statement. But in truth, even if Falana succeeds in making Buhari his first witness, he must have to wait until the prosecution has closed its case, which could be two years away, and he must admit then that the prosecution has made a prima facie case deserving a defense. (Of course, if at the end of prosecutions case, he feels that they did not make out a prima facie case against Sowore, he will not be calling any witnesses. Instead, he should be making a no-case submission. But the desire to compel Buhari to testify as a hostile witness may cause him to deviate from standard defense counsel procedure). Note that Falana in 3 years, Falana was not able to make Buhari his witness El Zakzakky case. Before we end this piece, let it be known that presently, DSS has suspects in their custody who have been there for up to two years without them being taken to any court and without any court order. Sowore being a high profile suspect has been treated differently. We need to demand that DSS take all suspects in its custody to court or otherwise obtain a court order for their detention. That should be among the proper aims for any revolution in Nigeria. DPA shall keep its members fully informed about the legal development in the Sowore's case.

It doesn't matter how I look at it, I cannot ignore the fact that five months ago, there was an election in this country. Sowore was a candidate in that election. His party, AAC, contested in that election. Sowore had an excellent opportunity to present his vision to the people of Nigeria, and he did very well and very clearly. The election was an excellent opportunity for you to support Sowore by voting for him in order to actualize his vision. You carefully considered his vision and completely rejected it. You refused to vote for Sowore. You refused to help actualize his vision. If we go by the election result, even as flawed as it might have been, Sowore did not get even 1% of your votes. Less than six months after, the same Sowore came back to you for you to support the same vision you rejected, but this time he seeks your support through a revolution that he would lead. And you, having refused to support his vision in an election through your votes, decided to support his vision by revolution through your protest. You have to be foolish really, or totally dishonest. If Sowore had not been part of the election process, I might have supported his revolution because that would be his only option to bringing about his vision. Indeed, it is the absence of election that makes revolution inevitable. Those who have the option of election cannot also have the option of revolution. What Sowore tries to do is stupid and dangerous. If he is allowed to do it, it will mean that any politician who loses election can start a revolution in other to overturn the outcome of the elections. You can argue from morning till night, what Sowore did is a classic case of treason. Nigerians rejected him in an election, and he tried to force himself on Nigerians via a revolution. Who is he trying to fool? Given the election results, he did not even come close to a point where he could claim to be a victim of rigging. And if we may face reality for once, if we may drop all this noise and irrational sentiments, the government will prosecute Sowore for treason and they have very strong case. They can show that Sowore was trying to change the outcome of election which he lost. He was trying to overthrow the government that was produced by the election he lost. The fact that thousands of people moved into the street in response to his call for a revolution is the evidence that he moved from a mere wish to action. The problem we can see is that because some people don't like Buhari, they are ready to be flexible with their morality and logic. You are ready to support the revolution of the man you rejected in the elections because Buhari is the one in office. If Atiku were to have been the one in office will you support Sowore's revolution? Indeed, if Sowore had won the election, will he be carrying out this revolution? You really have to understand how illogical you are. Buhari has a moral power to crush you and your ill-conceived and fraudulent revolution. You lose election and you try revolution. Everybody that knows DPA will know that we never supported Buhari and we oppose nearly every one of his policies. But we have chosen to remain objective and rational over this. We will not join an irrational mob because it is popular to do so. Most of these people clamoring for revolution are professional agitators. They will join any riot or protest or revolution provided it is against their political opponent. Also, many of the promoters of Sowore revolution are so unstrategic in their thinking. If you cannot mobilize in Kano and Port Harcourt for your revolution, it is a waste of time. If you whip up ethnic and religious sentiments against Buhari, he can counter in equal measure. Every successful revolutionary must take a realistic view of the factors on the ground. Sowore's revolution is not consistent with the Biafran movement because while Sowore wants the Nigeria he can rule, the Biafrans want to be out of Nigeria. The only way support each other is if they are dishonest to each other. In other words, for Sowore to succeed even as a theory,  the Biafran project must fail. And for the Biafran project to succeed, there will be no Nigeria for Sowore to rule. Likewise, Sowore's revolution is not in the interest of PDP. The PDP is interested in winning the case at tribunal. It is only if they have lost hope in a favourable outcome at the tribunal that they can support any revolution, unless they are the secret sponsors of the revolution. It will be irrational to support Sowore. However, as a human being, I will support his release but only on humanitarian consideration and on the condition that he will stop trying to use revolution to overcome the election result that he lost. Dr. Greg

That Nigeria is a sick nation is not in doubt. That the sickness is extending to individuals enmass is apparent. That it is taking the dimension of mass disorientation and intellectual paralysis is equally evident. The reaction to the arrest of Sowore for his revolution protest is just one instance of this malaise. Otherwise, how come that reasonable and educated people would not see through Sowore's childish trick? You registered a political party under the Constitution.  You participated in the campaigns and elections. You realize that you had no chance of getting Nigerians to vote for your party. In other words, you lost woefully. You then ask those whom you could not convince to vote for you to come out and join you in a protest you expect to mark the beginning of a revolution. How more dumb could you be? And how more dumb could your supporters be? Yes, those who support Sowore's revolution are dumb. How could they refuse to vote for Sowore in the elections, but come out to support his revolution after he lost the elections? What would have happened if Sowore had won the elections? And what would happen if every politician who lost elections would start a revolution protest? It was so ironic reading where Atiku seemed to be supporting the revolution protest. If that is a remedy for losing elections, why is Atiku wasting time at the election tribunal? He should have started a revolution protest. Don't get me wrong. DPA supports and promotes the right of Nigerians to freely assemble and to freely express themselves. They have the right to protest, which derives from the freedom of association and freedom of speech. Protest is a protected form of speech. We support it. But for a defeated politician to call for a revolution after losing election is a totally different ball game. One thing is clear. No one in the international community will support the call for a revolution. Nobody anywhere in the world will support an unconstitutional overthrow of government. If it happens by default, it is another thing altogether. But to gather and plan it, the world will laugh at you if they think you are joking, and will be deeply worried if they see any chance that you may succeed. Sowore knows that a revolution cannot occur in Nigeria in the form of a protest he called. The state and its apparatuses of coercion are fully in tact. The people are not ready. Indeed, it is a joke, which is the only reason we feel he should not have been arrested. To arrest him is to give some weight to a thing that lacked weight. Some of the supporters of Sowore's revolution say it will not necessarily be violent, but they cannot guarantee it will not. And if they could, it makes the revolution more laughable. With the state apparatuses of coercion already engaged,  only a violent revolution can succeed against the onslaught that the state is ready to unleash on the revolutionaries. Is there any value at all to this call for revolution? Yes, there is. Every wrong thing has the value of showing us how not to do it next time.

Yes, Nigerian government, this and the ones before it, but particularly this one, have failed Nigerians. The conditions of human life in Nigeria have never been as bad as they are right now. The country is on the verge of another civil war, that is if one fails to admit that war is already ongoing on many fronts. We admit that a radical solution is needed for Nigeria to move forward in any positive direction. However, to believe that you can call for a protest "to start a revolution" is an exercise in naivete or a plain self-deception. Yes, the people have a right to protest and to express grievances against government. And indeed, such mass expressions of grievances may trigger or spin off into a revolution so to speak. But to declare ahead of time that your protest was for the purpose of initiating a revolution is highly unusual and effectively self-defeating. Revolutions are hardly ever planned on any specific date, otherwise any such plan will be treasonable at the outset. Regardless of what normally happens when and if a revolution has succeeded, the focus now is on what happens to a revolution that has not succeeded or which is just at the stage of social media declaration. The regime it seeks to oust will crush it, or at least try to do so. If we are to be realistic, to plan a revolution against the current regime is to do one of two things - to either invite the Executive and Legislative arms of Government to abdicate, i.e. to pack and go home and for at least a yet to be defined interim revolutionary administration to take over, or to invite the current Government to fight for self-preservation (law and order, as they call it). The Government will fight to crush such revolution. No government in human history has voluntarily succumbed to a threatened revolution. Some naive minds have adverted with hubris to recent similar 'revolutions' in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Venezuela. But in truth, nobody in his right mind will want the fates of these countries for Nigeria. That will be worse than what we have at the moment. Protests should be held for the purpose of pressuring the government to change its ways, but not for the purpose of a revolution which brings about a total collapse of government. It is foolish and unwise to live in such unsophisticated illusions and fantasies. What do you really think will happen if after series of protests (like in Sudan, for instance) the Buhari Administration collapses? That will not install Atiku. That will not remove the Governors. On the contrary, that will result in massive anarchy and uncontrollable violence. In that state, the only organized group with the capacity to impose itself is Boko Haram and the Islamic State of West Africa. They will not disarm. The herdsmen will not disarm. Even if the Nigerian army disintegrates, they will not disarm. All those who have stockpiled weapons in anticipation of a situation like that will deploy their weapons. Then you will have uncontrollable violence on a scale never seen in history. The fact that Sowore would leverage his social media assets to call for a protest for the purpose of a revolution is an indication that he lacks crucial knowledge of history, social sciences and human nature. Indeed, what is on display is just an unbridled play for attention and publicity. Having said this much, should the DSS have arrested Sowore? No, they shouldn't. They should have known that was exactly what Sowore wanted to happen. Yes, a case of treason could be made out at least theoretically. But, sometimes, wisdom and power lie more in what you did not do rather than in what you did. Withholding action on Sowore would have been eminently wise. Arresting him for a fictional revolution is to make him popular. Just as the arrest and detention of Nnandi Kanu helped to transform IPOB into a cause celebre, arresting Sowore will create the false impression that there was a revolution that needed to be stopped, and that Sowore was the leader of such revolution. That is: the arrest turns Sowore into a revolutionary over night. The only cause such arrest will end up promoting is Sowore's cause which is an enhanced visibility and better outing for his party come 2023. The irony of it is that what Sowore wants is not the collapse which a revolution could bring about, but the sustaining of the status quo with assured better election outcome in 2023. We conclude as we started. We want fundamental changes in the Nigerian polity, with emphasis on improving dramatically the quality of life, justice, equity and fairness for the average Nigerians. However,  we doubt that the call for revolution in itself will meet our expectations of these ideals. On the contrary, we believe it will exacerbate tensions and chaos and precipitate wars on levels yet to be experienced in this country. We therefore call for a critical analysis of the situation on the ground.

If one were to ask you to define what it means to be literate, as opposed to being illiterate, you will probably say it is a person who can read and write in any given language. But it means a lot more. In fact, most people who can read don't understand half what they read. And most people who can write don't understand the meaning of much of what they write. For instance, an average Nigerian graduate may not be able to distinguish between "could" and "would" or between "I hope" and "I expect" or "I believe". Yet these are  basic language tools. One noticed, for instance, that when one use words such as "probably" or "seemingly" or "apparently" in a sentence, most Nigerian graduates understand the statement as if these words were not contained in the statement.   Many graduates don't understand the meaning of the phrase "by default'. So, we need to look for a better and more effective definition of the term that can give it meaning and purpose. So, you need to be referred to the definition adopted by the United States Department of Education. The Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, which is cited by the U.S. Department of Education, defines literacy as: “the ability to understand, evaluate, use and engage with written texts to participate in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential" By the above definition, you can tell that being able to read and write in certain languages will not make you literate. If you cannot "develop [your] knowledge and potential" in physics and human anatomy or calculus or algorithm in a given language, then you are not literate based on your skill or proficiency in such language. Let us reevaluate our understanding of what it means to be considered literate.