Femi Falana, a senior advocate of
Nigeria (SAN), says when Omoyele Sowore was in detention, a request was made
for him to apologise to President Muhammadu Buhari but it was rejected.
Sowore, an activist, was arrested
and detained in August ahead of #RevolutionNow, a nationwide protest against
the government.
He was released in December but
restricted to the federal capital territory (FCT).
While in detention of the
Department of State Services (DSS), a delegation led by the late Ismaila Isa
Funtua, an ally of the president, had reportedly visited Sowore to “negotiate
conditions” for his release.
After his death on Monday, Sowore
tweeted a video where he described Funtua as an “arrogant man” who asked him to
“abandon the struggle” in exchange for his release.
In an ensuing face-off, Garba
Shehu, presidential spokesman, who was part of the delegation, accused Sowore
of “attacking a dead soul”.
Shehu said the visit was not to
negotiate Sowore’s release, adding that Sowore felt happy when the first meeting
held in Abuja but a subsequent one where the delegation met Sowore’s lawyer in
Lagos, collapsed.
Reacting in a statement on
Thursday, Falana who is Sowore’s lawyer, accused Shehu of attempting to distort
the proceedings of the meetings.
“Mr. Garba Shehu has continued to
give the highly erroneous impression that the deal struck with the captive was
frustrated by his lawyer. Mr. Shehu’s memory failed him in his jejune
narrative,” he said.
“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)’
“I confirm that I held a meeting
with the trio referred to by Mr. Shehu even though he did not mention my name.
Hence, I am compelled to react to a couple of issues raised in his incendiary
account. More so that he did not attend the Lagos meeting. For reasons best
known to Mr. Shehu, he refused to inform
the Nigerian people that I rejected the gratuitous request to prevail on Mr.
Sowore to apologise to President Muhammadu Buhari and write an undertaking to
desist from further embarrassing the federal government.
“Apart from insisting that my
client had committed no offence by exercising his freedom of expression over
the perilous state of the nation, 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 equally
disclosed that I demanded for the unconditional release of my client from the
unlawful incarceration of the State Security Service. 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
civilian dispensation.”
The senior lawyer said it is
interesting to note that he teamed up with other patriots in 2006 to campaign
for the release of Shehu, who was then spokesperson of former Vice-President
Atiku Abukakar, when he was detained by the DSS State and charged with the
offence of “obtaining, reproducing and
keeping classified material” in contravention of the official secrets act.
He said the charge filed
against Shehu was withdrawn and struck
out in his favour.
“In like manner, the charge of
treasonable felony which is hanging menacingly on the head of Mr. Omoyele
Sowore like a sword of Damocles will also be struck out in his favour in the
fullness of time,” he said.
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