The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, has called for the immediate and unconditional release of the Publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore.
CACOL said as a civil anti-corruption organization it does not support violent take-over of government, especially under a democratic or people-oriented arrangement where elections are periodically organized to choose who lead the mass under a free and transparent atmosphere.
Withinnigeria had earlier reported that the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, AAC in the February 2019 election, Omoyele Sowore, had called for a nationwide staging of protests against what he described as a bad governance.
The protest he tagged “Revolution Now was planned to take place on Monday, August 5.
However, his arrest by personnel of Department of State Services, DSS, was announced in the early hours of Saturday.
CACOL lends its voice to the nationwide calls for the release of Omoyele, Founder and Publisher of the online news medium, Sahara Reporters, and a former presidential candidate of All African Congress (AAC) in the last Presidential elections.
In a release issued on Monday by CACOL’s Coordinator Debo Adeniran, the Centre stated, “CACOL as a civil anti-corruption organization does not support violent take-over of government, especially under a democratic or people-oriented arrangement where elections are periodically organized to choose who lead the mass under a free and transparent atmosphere, devoid of any travesty of sanctity of people’s collective will.
“We, however, appreciate the historical reality of a burgeoning society not being able to always change its fortune or fate in a dramatic and desirable manner through electoral arrangements alone. This is why we agree with all renown philosophers and thinkers alike who posit that, ‘Civil Actions’ are necessary and inevitable tonic for repositioning and rejigging the lots of the people within the labyrinth of unresolved social conflicts or contradictions.
“Against this background, we strongly believe that for Nigeria to actually make progress and reclaim its primal position in the comity of modern nations, the current Government should heed the call for a resort to the various outcomes of deliberations and resolutions on the contentious national issues like: resource control, state or regional Police, foreign policy, and even the making of a truly people-oriented constitution for the over 250 (Two Hundred and Fifty) ethnic nationality groupings in Nigeria.
“We believe that no shortcut exists towards achieving this than the Convocation of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) which decisions must be binding and sovereign by the very agreement of all age-long issues of altercation and relevance within the Nigerian state.
“It is our belief that the refusal of successive governments in Nigeria to admit that the coming into existence of Nigeria, though desirable, was not altogether properly negotiated; and this has in no small measure, been responsible for deep rooted suspicion, economic degradation and subversion/corruption and general state of insecurity and social upheavals.
“We believe that it is never too late to retrace the footpath of the nation if and when everything shows clearly that we have since lost our path as a nation. This could only be achieved through recourse to the reports of various, previous conferences and dialogues while representatives are drawn from respective counties/wards to local and state governments, directly chosen by their communities, to review all relevant issues of coexistence and amicably arrive at a suitable Federal Constitution and acceptable modus of running our country.
“Having weighted the recent calls for a ‘Revolution’ by the erudite Social Activist turned politician, we aver that calls for a Revolution alone, whether ethical, agrarian, industrial or even social, does not and cannot, constitute treasonable felony acts on their own, except there are other unimpeachable evidences of arms insurrection, concrete proofs of inciting or consultations on arms struggle, etc., we may be unaware of but in possession of the state security agencies. That in itself may now also be debatable as social movements and prevailing conditions may remain veritable instruments of juxtaposition in resolving how mutiny and treason should be treated in a civil entity. However, nothing even points to these possibilities in this circumstance.
“We therefore, advise that Sowore Omoyele be granted an unconditional and immediate release to defray an unnecessary tension and heating up of the polity which his continued detention is only capable of fostering.”
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