Mr Sowore, who was
charged for treason, cyberstalking and abusing the president, was illegally
detained for about four months in 2019 for calling for a ‘revolution’.
The activist said
while he was held in detention, an emissary led by the late Ismaila Isa-Funtua
visited him to extract a commitment to jettison his call for revolution in
exchange for his freedom.
But presidential
spokesperson, Garba Shehu, rebutted this, saying members of the delegation came
on their own volition and not on the urging of the president.
He added that “the
fence mending process” was fruitful, and “Mr Sowore was happy with a resolution
proposed, although the latter said his lawyer (Mr Falana) needed to come on board.”
But the process
collapsed after the team met Mr Falana in Lagos, Mr Shehu said.
In reaction to this
on Thursday, Mr Falana said while Mr Shehu “did not attend the Lagos meeting,”
he gave a “highly erroneous impression that the deal struck with the captive
(Mr Sowore) was frustrated by his lawyer.”
He added that “Mr
Shehu’s memory failed him,” for refusing to tell Nigerians he rejected “the
gratuitous request” to persuade Mr Sowore to “apologise to President Buhari and
write an undertaking to desist from further embarrassing the federal
government.”
“Mr Shehu ought to
have equally disclosed that I demanded for the unconditional release of my
client from the unlawful incarceration of the State Security Service,” Mr
Falana noted.
“I expressed my
personal agony over the request because I won the legal battle wherein the
Court of Appeal had upheld the fundamental right of the Nigerian people to
protest against the government without police permit.
“Mr Shehu ought to
have published the terms of the “resolution” which he claimed that Mr Sowore
had accepted instead of of blaming the collapse of the “fence-mending process”
on the intransigence of his lawyer “whoever that was (sic).”
“In fact, when the
late Alhaji Isa Funtua said rather condescendingly at the Lagos meeting that
the regime in power could not be defeated, I was quick to remind him that the
Nigerian people had defeated military dictators to pave way for the current
ivilian dispensation,” the rights lawyer wrote.
0 Comments