The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has condemned last Friday’s dramatic re-arrest of the Publisher of Saharareporters Omoyele Sowore and Olawale Bakare at the Courtroom of the Federal High Court in Abuja, describing it as a shameful fallacy.
In a media statement endorsed jointly by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf said that there is no justifiable reason under the Sun for an institution created by statute like the State Security Services or the Department of State Services to actively invade the sacred sanctum of the Federal High Court and employ brute force to arbitrarily Re-arrest two Nigerian citizens who are already on bail granted to them by the competent Court of law.
The Rights group said the display of crudity and wanton disrespect for the sanctity of the Court system and the half-baked efforts by reactionary forces aligned to the Federal administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to explain away the weighty issues connected with the invasion of the Federal High Court room of Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu makes the government appear to be totally cut off from reality and shows the high level of arrogance of power in display at the highest echelons of the central government in Abuja at the moment.
“This attempt to paint black what is white and to deny an event recorded on video and circulated all over the World will present the government as a bunch of people who are in the business of canonizing falsehoods and adopting naked lies as the hallmarks of the current administration. This is a serious disservice to the Nigerian State and this crude tendencies will harm the international image of the Country for a long time to come.”
HURIWA’s statement is coming against the backdrop of a belated claim by the State security services which said in a statement by its Spokesman, Peter Afunanya, that Sowore acted a well-rehearsed script to give the world the impression that agents of the secret police arrested him inside a courtroom even as the agency said there was no attempt whatsoever to pick up Sowore from the court as widely reported by the media.
HURIWA said it is a shame that the current administration has completely rubbished all major institutions that the constitution has put in place to strengthen the practice of democracy in Nigeria just as the Rights group blamed the unbridled quest by the President for totalitarianism and dictatorial powers for the active campaign of destabilization of the Judiciary as is being carried out by the State Security Services. HURIWA has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to desist from abusing his powers and office because political power is transient.