Killing me, Igboho, Kanu won’t end agitation for good governance – Sowore

Excerpt from Sowore's interview with the Punch: Q: What has been your experience in activism so far? A: My Experience is an experience that has lasted more than 30 years. It has been constant harassment, bullying, torture and abuse because I am one of the few young persons who stood up during the military rule. I stood up fighting against environmental groups in the country against oil companies; I stood up fighting against corruption by civilian administrations in the country. I stood up against every government in the last 32 years, and I was expelled twice from the university, I was in detention eight times before I left for the United States of America. I got harassed at the airport and have been detained several times after I returned from the US after 20 years in exile. I’ve been physically assaulted, a police officer broke my nose, and I have been shot at. My younger brother was murdered under circumstances that are still unexplained till date. My bank account was frozen, social media accounts were created and attempts were made to destroy Sahara Reporters, a platform that I set up for news reporting. They’ve come after me in every way they could in the last 32 years. Q: You once claimed that you were offered amnesty while in detention and that some prominent Nigerians visited you. What was the basis for that? A: They realised that they were wrong and that I wasn’t going to take their offer. Some guys led by late Issa Funtua, founder of ThisDay Newspapers, Nduka Obaigbena, the publisher of Vanguard Newspapers, Sam Amuka Pemu, and Garba Shehu, the spokesperson for the President, came to me and asked me to back down on my call for a revolution, and promised to release me and that they would allow me to go to the United States to reunite with my wife and kids. They also made a request that I should apologise publicly to the President for what they tagged the ‘panic and embarrassment’ that I brought upon the Buhari regime, but I rejected their offers and request immediately. Q: In 2021, a court ordered the Department of State Services to pay you the sum of N2m as damages for seizing your mobile phone at the point of your arrest. Has the money been paid since then? A: They didn’t pay the money, and they are yet to return my phone since then. This is a lawless regime, we served them the statement of the court and they have not paid the compensation nor returned my phone since the judgement was given in 2021. Q: Yoruba Nation crusader, Sunday Igboho, and the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, are being held along others involved in the agitation for self-determination. What do you think the Federal Government must do to end this agitation? A: They must be released immediately; the government should apologise to them, and pay compensation to them for the humiliation and denial of their human rights. It is their right to seek self-determination, and the Nigerian State has no right to arrest, detain, or oppress them. The best they can do is to call for dialogue. The government is only running in circles, thinking that the detention of Igboho or Kanu would quench the agitation the same way that they felt that arresting and detaining me would stop the agitation for a revolution, but it came in a different manner through the #EndSARS protests a year later. The government should invite all aggrieved persons and groups to a roundtable to discuss the future of Nigeria because the use of force cannot make or keep anyone to become or remain a citizen of Nigeria, only justice can do that, and without justice, even if you kill Sunday Igboho, Nnamdi Kanu, or myself, Omoyele Sowore, more battalions would show up, and there is nothing the government can do about it because you cannot continue to beat a child and dictate to them how they would cry.