The Presidential Spokesperson on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu has reminded Nigerians that Sowore detention has nothing to do with him being Journalist, but for an entirely different reason. Shehu was reacting to some international media captioning Sowore as the publisher of the Sahara Reports detained by government.
Mr Sowore was released on the order of the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami who directed the DSS to comply with the court order granting Sowore’s bail.
The Presidential spokesperson said Mr Sowore was in the DSS net was because he threatened to overthrow the government of President Buhari , a Democratically elected Government.
He revealed the Government of President Buhari has never at anytime threatened any Media of media house or a journalist since assumption of office in 2015, however, no government would tolerate any individual threatening to upturn it administration.
The statement partly reads, “The Presidency wishes to clarify the release on bail, of the Presidential Candidate of the African Action Congress in the February 2019 elections, Omoyele Sowore. Some international news outlets have mistakenly been describing his release as that of a journalist,”
For the avoidance of doubt, the Buhari administration has never, since coming into office in 2015, detained a journalist, seized copies of newspapers or shut down a medium of information.
“Sowore called for a revolution to overthrow the democratically elected government of Nigeria. He did so on a live television program, and from a privileged position as the owner of a widely-read digital newspaper run from the United States of America.
“He founded an organisation, Revolution Now, to launch, in their own words, “Days of Rage”, with the publicised purpose of fomenting mass civil unrest and the elected administration’s overthrow.
“No government will allow anybody to openly call for destabilisation in the country and do nothing.
He concluded that Nigeria for the past decade has been managing insurgency, therefore it cannot fold its hand and watch while orders threatened to destabilise the security of the country.
