Nigeria’s Secret Police Again Disobeyed the Court, by Rueben Abati

"...Existential considerations in Nigeria are also so tragically circumstanced. It would take more than the wearing of berets and the chanting of slogans to move the needle.

Sowore’s activism adopts the exact tactics of campus journalism, students’ unionism and civil society protest. He does not come across as a man of violence to warrant the panic response and over-reaction of the state.


But the state, represented by the Department of State Services, Nigeria’s secret police, over-reacted. On August 3, 2019 they stormed Sowore’s residence in Lagos and Gestapo-style, abducted him in the middle of the night, breaking down doors and windows.


Members of the #RevolutionNow protest later went ahead with the protest scheduled for August 5. Hundreds of them were arrested across Nigeria, notably in Southern Nigeria where the protest was basically concentrated.


Today, the public only hears of two names in DSS custody: Omoyele Sowore and Olawale Bakare (aka Mandate).
It is not impossible that there are some unnamed and overlooked #RevolutionNow protesters languishing in some Awaiting Trial prisons in parts of the country. Five months after Nigeria’s general elections in 2019, it suddenly became a crime to use the word “revolution” or make any reference to “change”.


Sowore and his allies dared the state and Nigeria found itself confronted with a most problematic post-election situation. My argument is: it could all have been handled differently and far more intelligently.


By over-reacting, the Federal Government has turned Omoyele Sowore into “the Bobi Wine of Nigeria.” Nigeria’s Department of State Services has only managed to increase Sowore’s political capital.


He was granted bail on September 24, 2019. The secret police ignored the court’s order. The Court varied the original terms, upon request by Sowore’s counsel and granted another bail order on October 4.


Nigeria’s secret police again disobeyed the court. It constituted itself into a Court of Appeal, and gave conditions not contained in the Order of Court. The agency further indulged itself with rationalisation that simply looked stupid in the eyes of right-thinking members of society:

 (1) “Sowore and other detained persons prefer to stay in DSS detention because the agency has five-star facilities” (does that sound intelligent?) and

(2): “Sowore is better off in the custody of the state secret police so he doesn’t get killed by a hit and run vehicle” (auto-suggestion?), and

 (3) “The DSS could not release Sowore and Bakare because nobody had shown up to receive them (how about the counsel – Femi Falana, SAN, who retorted that he had made every effort to receive the detained persons, now legitimately granted bail, but not even the Director General of DSS, who is well known to him, would grant him audience?) and

(4) “For Sowore and Bakare to be released, their sureties must report to the DSS and go through proper documentation” (was that part of the bail conditions declared by the Court – No?).


In the face of public outrage, the DSS bared its fangs. When a group of Concerned Nigerians tried to visit the DSS Headquarters in Abuja to demand the release of Sowore and Bakare in compliance with Court Orders, they were tear-gassed, brutalized, shot at and dispersed. On December 4, the court of Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu gave the DSS a 24-hour ultimatum to release Sowore and pay him a sum of N100, 000 as damages or face the wrath of the law.

 Clearly in response to the outrage and the vitriolic comments that the government’s brazen disregard for the rule of law had generated, and the threat by the Court to charge the DSS boss for contempt, the agency promptly complied.
Sowore and Bakare were released. On December 5, both parties were back in Court and the judge fixed the commencement of trial on the 4-count charge against Sowore – treason, money laundering, insulting the President and cyberstalking – for February 11, 2020.

The Judge even praised the DSS for respecting her ruling of December 4. But then hell broke loose as the DSS re-arrested Sowore within court premises without an arrest warrant and an order of detention and without recourse to the court of law. In 24 hours, the DSS reversed itself and in doing so, embarrassed the Nigerian government and exposed it to ridicule.


There have been conflicting versions of what exactly transpired, but whatever that was, it is Omoyele Sowore and his counsel who are controlling the narrative. Nobody believes the DSS!


An intelligence agency should never lose the trust and confidence of the people. It must not become partisan. In 2018, a team of DSS officers attacked the National Assembly.

In 2019, the same DSS took over the premises of a Federal High Court and abducted a man standing trial. Nigerians are convinced that the DSS is pursuing a political agenda. No amount of press statements can correct that impression at this point..."