Sowore’s re-arrest: Why are we all acting surprised?

It is like a scene out of a movie. There is chaos, a crowd of people are pushing and shoving while others—lawyers in long black robes and grey wigs—look on helpless. A man in black suit has wrestled and pinned another smaller man to the floor. But the smaller man’s followers are having none of it. They struggle to free him even though their efforts are noticeably cautious. It is like they know they are up against a powerful enemy, like a herd of buffalo watching as the lions devour one of them and calculating whether or not to make a move.

As though to boost their confidence, the men scream assertions and slogans of defiance:

Leave him alone!

Kill us!

If you want to shoot, shoot!

If you want to kill him, kill him!

Eventually, the pinned man wrestles himself free of the captive’s hold as his followers form a protective blockade.

The scene ends.

The man in the scene—the one that had been pinned to the floor—is Omoyele Sowore, founder of Sahara Reporters, an online news agency, and Convener of Revolution Now—a call for nationwide protests against the Nigerian government. Mr. Sowore was arrested on August 4, 2019, the eve of the planned protests. The government saw the protests as a treasonable attempt to forcefully take over government. Sowore was locked away for weeks before any formal charges were filed against him.

I’ll cut to the chase. After a series of court appearances, Sowore was eventually granted bail and the Federal High Court issued warrants for him and a co-defendant, Olawale Bakare, to be released. The warrants were served on the Department of State Services (DSS) which acknowledged receipt on Friday, 9 November. The warrants notwithstanding, the DSS failed to release Sowore. When the court reconvened, nearly one month later, the presiding judge, Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu, again ordered Sowore’s release and adjourned for 24 hours. It was at this juncture that the DSS, to the surprise of some, released Sowore—107 days after his arrest.

Now this is where our story starts.

Why is Sowore, the same man that was released barely 24 hours ago (estimates put his hours of freedom at 18) being dragged and pinned down by a black-suited man. Why are his followers protesting?

Well, it’s simple. The DSS were seeking to re-arrest Sowore, to the consternation of those present. And they were doing this right in the court room, the same court that had ordered his release. Sowore was arrested minutes later after his lawyer drove him to the DSS office.

Now that is where the story ends, at least for now. People watch on waiting to see how the rest unfold. But if we are good students of ‘history’—a relatively recent one at that—then we will already know that there are only two ways that this story can end.

One of the things that has caught my interest the most, since the debacle of Sowore’s re-arrest, is the seemingly surprised reaction of many Nigerians. I was puzzled when I read shocked reactions to his re-arrest. Did it really come as a surprise to Nigerians? Like, for real? Could I have been the only one who saw it coming?

Only last year, I wrote a paper for a conference in Botswana wherein I illustrated, using the cases of Colonel Sambo Dasuki and Nnamdi Kanu, how the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari circumvents bail orders through what I term the ‘soft non-compliance’ approach. This approach is very simple: the government, unlike some past administrations, does not straight out condemn court orders or announce non-compliance. No. Instead, the government pretends to actually comply with the bail orders by either releasing and re-arresting the victims, or simply filing new charges against them.

It is a sneaky approach designed to gloss over the clear infraction of the court order. It is also like the government is mocking the courts and saying to them: Ok, we have obeyed your court order and released him. However, we have now re-arrested him. Please do not make the same mistake of granting bail this time. I can imagine them finishing the statement with a wide grin and a big smiling emoji.

It is no secret that the current administration of President Buhari has targeted and witch hunted certain individuals like Sambo Dasuki, El Zakzaky, and Nnamdi Kanu. In many cases, these persons are kept in detention despite court orders for their release, simply because the President has a personal score to settle with them. The government has also been ‘tactical’ in its violation of these bail orders. It does not simply say: We will not release so and so. No. In fact, in some cases, the government, usually through the DSS, ‘releases’ these persons only to swiftly re-arrest them on ‘new’ albeit identical charges.

My point is this: Sowore is not the first person to be rearrested after a pseudo release from detention. The government has constantly shown its hand in this regard. Why then do Nigerians appear to be taken aback this time? Why is everyone blaming the DSS as though oblivious to the puppeteer pulling its strings? Could the DSS really act so blatantly without endorsement from the powers that be? Is Sowore’s treatment new? Is it even the worst?

In December 2015, Dasuki was released on bail by a High Court judge. After fulfilling his bail conditions which included the provision of a surety with landed property worth 250 million naira, Dasuki was ‘released’ by the Comptroller of Prisons. But he never managed to leave the prison premises. Minutes after his fake release, the DSS pounced on him and detained him.

Technically, at least from the government’s perspective, no law had been broken. As a matter of fact, the government had ‘obeyed’ the court order and released Dasuki as directed. He had only been immediately rearrested on ‘new’ charges. Of course, everybody knew that the new charges were not very different from the old ones. President Buhari simply wanted to keep Dasuki in prison. It may interest you to know that Dasuki has been granted bail on five different occasions, and by different courts, but remains in detention till this day.

It was a similar story for the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, who, unlike some of the others, was eventually released after two years in detention in what was clearly a political bail arrangement. Also, in 2015, the former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Patrick Akpobolokemi, was re-arrested outside the Federal High Court premises in Lagos, after a Monday sitting. He had been released from prison custody over the weekend after having satisfied his bail conditions. shortly after perfecting his bail conditions. Viral videos showed Akpobolokemi asserting his bail before being roughly bundled into a waiting van by DSS officials.

Why the surprise? Sowore’s re-arrest was simply a re-enactment of Akpobolokemi’s. It is not the first, and likely not the last, time that the Buhari government will mock a judicial bail order by re-arresting the accused? Or did we expect the government to simply stop its executive rascality? Why would it? There were no consequences the previous times, so why exercise any caution?

Everyone can see the Buhari government truncating the rule of law but no one is doing anything about it. The judiciary, as a body, has not taken any meaningful step against what must be an embarrassing negation of its role. They sit docile and watch as their reputation as the last hope of the common man is dragged through the mud. Shame on them!

And the legislature, the body that can actively plug this legal loophole? Nothing. Not a surprise. The ‘honourable’ legislators are more concerned about getting their allowances and flaunting party affiliation—I am APC, you are PDP. They do not realise their key role in the rule of law and separation of powers—in holding the executive to account. And has this current senate not shown its hand as a mere rubber stamp? Bigger shame on them!

I have said this in a previous article and I will say it again: President Muhammadu Buhari and those he put in charge of sensitive departments like the DSS do not believe in the rule of law. They do not believe in the separation of powers. Who can forget the 2015 ‘Presidential Media Chat’ where the president on being questioned about the continued detention of Kanu, said:

“Do you know he has two passports—one Nigerian, one British—and he came into this country without using any passport? Do you know he brought a sophisticated equipment into this country and was broadcasting for Radio Biafra… [and] you think he should be given bail to go away? ”

Yes, you read right. The president said that on live TV. The president of a democratic country effectively overruled the courts. As the head of the executive arm of government, he was prosecuting Kanu. Now, he was overruling the judicial arm.

It was clear to me, after watching the video at the time that it was the president issuing the directive for Kanu not be released and not the DSS or Attorney-General but, of course, no one said anything about it. I read all the national dailies and there was no action from the judiciary or even the lawyers. A president was saying on national TV that he would not comply with bail orders because he felt the charges were grievous, and no one was doing anything about it? Now we are acting all enraged that the same treatment is being meted out on Sowore? Seriously?

The truth is this. Our liberty, as it stands, is at the sheer, unregulated, discretion of the president. A leopard cannot change its spots. The president and his minions, as it stands, are above the law. The courts can grant us all the bail they want. They could even acquit us. All the government need do is to simply re-arrest us like Dasuki. If they feel like it, they can give us some few hours of freedom like Sowore.