NewsRescue
“Welcome to the club,” Nobel Laureate Soyinka told Sowore in reaction to the recent laughable charges the Buhari administration filed against the publisher of SaharaReporters.
Wole Soyinka was referring to the way General Buhari’s godfather Abacha had likewise slammed frivolous “treason” charges against himself and killed the liked Ken Saro Wiwa and others for running Radio Kudirat and other public campaigns against his reign of tyranny.
Omoyele Sowore has been charged with wiring about some under $20,000 a few times, insulting president Muhammadu Buhari and for demanding revolutionary change and better governance.
Soyinka’s full statement a presented in PREMIUMTIMES reads:
This is utterly depressing news. So, the Sowore affair has moved beyond harassment and taken on a sinister direction. Outside the country where I happened to be engaged at the moment, I can testify that the immediate reaction around me was to dismiss this as yet another grotesque product of Fake News, of which Nigerians have become the greatest practitioners. I confess that I also joined in this school of thought – at he start.
Further checks have however confirmed that this government has indeed attained an unprecedented level of paranoia. I do not believe that the Justice department itself believes in these improbable charges, as formally publicised. So, once again, we inscribe in our annals another season of treasonable felony, History still guards some lessons we have yet to digest, much less from which to learn.
Welcome to the Club, Mr. Omoyele Sowore.
Wole SOYINKA
