The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said on Monday that millions of Nigerians are not bothered about the re-arrest/detention of the convener of the #RevolutionNow protest, Omoyele Sowore at the Federal High Court, Abuja, last Friday.
The presidential spokesperson said this on Monday while appearing as a guest on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme.
The rearrest of Sowore at a federal high court in Abuja last Friday barely 24 hours after he was released, ignited the anger of many Nigerians within and outside the country.
Adesina speaking at the Programme said the rearrest of Sowore within the court premises was “not a desecration of the temple of justice”, while he dismissed the viral video of the arrest as being stage-managed.
“It depends on what is real, what is the concocted story or what is the reality,” Adesina said.
“We have heard a concocted story with a concocted video or incomplete video and then the DSS has come out to give its own perspective and I think that then gives a fairly balanced texture.
“If you are fair-minded; you are balanced; you are neutral, I’m sure you will have a balanced perspective of what happened. So as far as I am concerned, if you ask my opinion, I think it was not a desecration of the temple of justice because the DSS has explained how things played out.
“I don’t particularly agree with you. When you say a lot of Nigerians …you know that all this noise is coming from less than 100 million Nigerians and the noise will be so loud that you think it is the whole country.
“It is a country of 198 million people. When just 100,000 are making noise in the social and traditional media, you would think the whole country is in an uproar. There are millions and millions of people who are not bothered.
“There are millions and millions of people who understand what the issues are. So, you can’t just say this is the opinion of a vocal minority and you then conclude that the country is in an uproar. That is not correct”
Speaking on the comments made by Femi Falana, counsel to Sowore, he said “Falana is not a neutral party, we know the side where he belongs to in this matter; therefore, his opinion will not count much. ”
“If you want a balanced perspective, you listen to him, you listen to the DSS and you can come to what a fairly balanced perspective should be. Mr Falana is an interested party, so I won’t take his words 100 percent.”