Pro-democracy activist and presidential candidate of the African Action Congress in the 2023 general elections, Omoyele Sowore, has reunited with his family in the United States of America after the Federal Government of Nigeria discontinued the treasonable felony case preferred against him.
Details of the reunion were revealed on Saturday via pictures obtained by Sunday PUNCH showing Mr Sowore, his wife, daughter, and son, which were posted on his official social media pages.
Sowore who left Nigeria through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport at exactly 11pm Friday night, described his initial inability to be with his family members in the US for five years as “unlawful, unjust, and inhuman detention by the corrupt Nigerian political system since August 2019.”
He vowed to sue the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Department of State Services to the tune of N100bn, for cost of time and resources, mental and financial trauma caused his person, businesses, his wife and children, and his extended family, and the alleged assassination of his younger brother, Olajide Sowore in 2021
The activist made the development known in an exclusive telephone interview with our correspondent while noting that the FG must also pay the sum of N3 million awarded to him as compensation during the course of the trial.
He also asked that the Department of State Services return his passport and his mobile phones which were seized after he was arrested and detained in August 2019.
Meanwhile, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, in a document dated February 15, 2024, addressed to the Federal High Court of Nigeria, Abuja Division, disclosed his intention to discontinue the case against Sowore’s co-defendant, Olawale Bakare, aka Mandate.
Earlier on Friday, Sowore, on his Facebook account, criticised the All Progressives Congress government led by former President Muhammadu Buhari for his detention.
In the lengthy post titled, ‘The Struggle Continues: Sowore Departs for the USA after Five Years’, he wrote, “Later today, I will be returning to the US after almost five years of my unlawful, unjust and inhuman detention by the corrupt Nigerian political system since August 2019.
“I was arrested, assaulted, tortured, and detained for demanding that Nigerians deserve a nation that they can truly call their own. I was charged with treason – and after five years, the APC government was forced to withdraw its trumped-up charges against me.
“If the government thought that keeping me detained and later restricting my movement would break my spirit and cause me to renounce my commitment to fighting for the downtrodden Nigerian people, they are mistaken,” the statement read among others.
Sowore further said that the years of his detention made him miss out on precious moments with his wife and children while his mother’s health deteriorated due to the “unrelenting assault” on him, adding, “My associates have faced arrest, and some imprisonment.”
Continuing, the activist said, “In the last five years, I have been denied the ability to visit my family, I lost my brother to gunmen on Nigeria’s roads. I stand today to declare that I am unbowed. My commitment to Nigeria is unshakable. My resolve to continue to fight for the betterment of the Nigerian nation and to demand accountability from her leaders will never be compromised.”
While lamenting that corruption remains high and Nigerians are worse off today than they were five years ago, Sowore stressed that inflation is making it difficult for Nigerians to put food on their tables even as Nigeria’s currency has been devalued by almost 100 percent.
He commended and appreciated his lawyers, colleagues, and fellow revolutionaries at home and abroad who stood by him, including Femi Falana, SAN, adding that “Nigeria will be free of corruption someday.”
Sowore stressed further, “I’m not supposed to be congratulated because the federal government had decided to discontinue the symbolic treasonable felony case against me. I didn’t commit any crime. They only decided to waste my time and the resources of the country.”
Earlier, the trial judge, Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, had on Wednesday, February 14, threatened to strike out the over four-year-long alleged treasonable felony case by the Federal Government against Sowore.
Sowore was arrested in Lagos State by heavily armed DSS operatives at midnight of August 3, 2019, two days before a planned #RevolutionNow protest tagged “Days of Rage,” convened by the pro-democracy activist and slated for August 5, 2019.
Following his abduction, he was flown to Abuja and detained in solitary confinement for over four months at the headquarters of the DSS popularly known as ‘Yellow House.’
He was subsequently arraigned in court for trial by the DSS, who flouted court orders mandating the Secret Service to release him on several occasions.
However, the activist was later released following a lot of pressure from civil society groups, the media and the international community, including a United States lawmaker, Bob Menendez, amongst others.
