- Opeyemi Sowore
Opeyemi, wife of pro-democracy activist and convener of RevolutionNow movement, Omoyele Sowore, has condemned the continued detention of her husband by the Nigerian Government, insisting that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has no ground upon which to detain him further.
Appearing as a guest on Democracy Now, a television program in the United States, Mrs Sowore noted that the allegations made against her husband were baseless as the government was yet to back up the claims against him with evidence.
She said, “There are no formal charges per say, he is just being investigated for possible treason and terrorism.
“They based it upon a meeting that he had with Nnamdi Kanu, who has an organisation about Biafra.
“The two of them met and Yele (Sowore) made it public. In fact, he disagrees with some of Nnamdi Kanu’s rhetoric.
“Yele’s own thing was to bring in everybody’s voices so that Nigeria can be a country for pretty much all of its citizen.
“They also mentioned that he may have taken money from international countries and that he met some of them in Dubai but he has never been to Dubai before. No money basically has been found with him.
“So, those are the things that they’ve mentioned and associated with him but they basically have no ground for holding him and haven’t found any evidence.”
Speaking further, Opeyemi revealed that the government had only allowed him to talk with her and their children twice even though the calls were monitored by Department of State Services (DSS) operatives.
“They’ve allowed him to call twice and allowed him to talk to myself and his children. He is definitely putting up a brave front (sic) but it’s hard.
“Staying in isolation for that long and having monitored calls to your family would limit what he is able to say freely and unable to express himself.”
Sowore was arrested by the DSS on August 3, 2019 for calling for a peaceful protest to demand for good governance in Nigeria.
Despite growing calls for his release, the government has continued to hold on to him, breaching his fundamental human rights in the process.
