Buhari, Sowore set stage for revolution in Nigeria

• Blood flows as DSS, Police shoot protesters in Lagos
• Journalists arrested  

Monday, August 5, 2019, has gone down in history as day of REVOLUTION in Nigeria. President Muhammadu Buhari tacitly endorsed the revolution with the arrest of Omoyele Sowore, the perceived leader of the Revolution Now Movement and his being whisked from Lagos to Abuja at the weekend. Subsequently, the president deployed the instrument of state violence to declare war against the ‘revolutionists’. The activities of the group may, perhaps, have gone without violence or pandemonium but the Nigerian government escalated the issue, creating tension and panic across the country. As revolutionary history is known in the world, Sowore has made a clear statement, providing leadership for a new phase of liberation struggle in Nigeria. Apparently, President Buhari and Sowore, a presidential candidate in the 2019 general election, have set the ball rolling for revolution in the country. In a survey by National Daily in activities of day, Monday, August 5, several stakeholders in the Nigerian project are of the view that “The Revolution has begun.’

Gunshot wound

True to the words of these stakeholders, blood is already flowing in Lagos. The Department of Security Service, the Police and the Army besieged the National Stadium, Lagos, to prevent people from participating in the mass protest planned for this Monday. However, youths defied the security presence at the venue, which led to firing gun shot into the air and using teargas to scare people from the scene.

Reports indicated that journalists covering the scene were arrested; while the number of casualties from gunshot and inhaling of teargas was gathered to be increasing.

However, Omoyele Sowore, publisher of the online newspaper, Sahara Reporters, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress in the February 2019 General Election, had mobilised for the mass action under the umbrella of #RevolutionNow Movement to protest bad governance and incremental hardship in the country.

Sowore was arrested by the DSS at his residene on Saturday. National Daily gathered that the DSS explained that Sowore was arrested “for threatening public safety, peaceful co-existence and social harmony in the country.”

The Nigeria Police had also on Sunday issued a statement threatening that revolutionary protest is synonymous with treasonable felony.

However, the organisers of the protest had insisted that they will not be intimidated or deterred by the arrest of their leader, Sowore.

An observer at the scene of the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, decried “The Police shooting, Tear gassing and arresting youths and Members of the Media crew as more youth joins the Struggle;” declaring: “Revolution has begun.”