The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has condemned the arrest of Omoyele Sowore by the Department of State Services (DSS) ahead of Monday’s revolution protest.
In a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss. Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said: “This is reminiscent of the dictatorial style if the diabolical military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha which is totally not in consonance with the principle and practice of constitutional democracy”.
Sowore, the Publisher of Sahara Reporters and founder of the African Action Congress (AAC), was arrested by DSS operatives on Saturday.
HURIWA lamented that the Buhari administration has embarked on deliberate stiffling of the civilians.
It also accused the DSS of illegally bugging telephones of prominent civil rights leaders including leaders of HURIWA.
According to HURIWA: “It is an undeniable fact that civic space is the bedrock and the fundamental of any open and democratic government which is guaranteed under the chapter four of the Nigerian constitution of 1999 (as amended); all other global human rights conventions and laws do also support the fundamental freedoms as espoused in chapter 4 of the constitution.
“May we remind president Buhari that his attacks against those fundamental freedoms constitute grave threats to democracy because when civic space is open, citizenry and civic society platforms are then able to organize, participate and communicate without hindrance or impediments that the open threats to lives and freedoms of the practitioners have now become.
“This can only be the case if government is compelled to discharge her obligations to the citizenry. The freedoms of association; peaceful assembly and expression are no doubt the strategic elements of an open civic space. These critical elements are systematically put under attacks by the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration and unfortunately, the free World is watching as constitutional democracy is about to collapse in Nigeria.
“Does anyone in this government benefit from these killings by all kinds of armed freelance killers and bandits so much so that the government is afraid of street protests to condemn these killings?”