We believe, like Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka that the ludicrous treason charges preferred against Omoyele Sowore shows the Buhari administration has attained an “unprecedented level of paranoia and is desperately trying to silent dissent, free speech and association. It is in the nature of democratic governance that citizens hold dissenting views and opinions and are free to express them, including those that are deemed offensive to the president.
Recently, just a day before the expiration of the 45-day detention order granted it by the federal high court, Abuja, the federal government filed seven counts charges of treasonable felony and money laundering against the publisher of Sahara Reporters. The treasonable felony and money laundering charges against Sowore ranges from staging “a revolution campaign on September 5, 2019 aimed at removing the president,” causing insult, enmity, hatred and ill will on the person of the president, to transferring foreign currency from his New York account to Nigeria.
Like Soyinka avers, we do not think even the ministry of justice itself believe in those improbable charges and as a civil society group, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) said, the charges against Sowore – and several other similar trumped-up cases going on in several states – are persecution and not prosecution and makes a hideous mockery of Nigeria’s criminal justice system, rule of law, freedom of expression and media freedom.
It appears some things do not change in Nigeria. We recall that in 1984, at the height of the economic malaise, scarcity of essential commodities and hunger pervading the country, the military regime of General Buhari rolled out a series of decrees and laws to curtail the freedom of expression of Nigerians. The infamous decree 4 prohibited journalists from reporting anything that could embarrass the regime, even if it was true. It did not take long before two journalists fell afoul of the law and were consequently locked up.
In 2015, then candidate Buhari promised to operate differently saying he was now a converted democrat. But since coming to power in 2015, his government has become desperate to curtail free speech and trying in various guises to resurrect the infamous decree 4.
It began early in the life of the administration with the anti-social media bill sponsored by Bala Ibn Na’Allah (APC Kebbi South), which seeks to “criminalise anyone disseminating via text message, Twitter, WhatsApp, or any other form of social media an ‘abusive statement’ intending to set the public against any person and group of persons, an institution of government or such other bodies established by law”.
When that bid failed, another phony bill seeking to regulate Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) came up. The bill, sponsored by Umar Buba Jibril, (APC Kogi West), sought for the establishment of yet another federal agency to supervise, coordinate and monitor NGOs with sweeping powers to regulate their conduct and grant a license for operation renewable every two years. Without such license, no NGO can operate and the agency could refuse renewal for no reason.
What is more, only the license of the agency (not registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission) confers legal personality and perpetual succession on NGOs.
When these efforts failed, the government, in 2017, started railing against what they call “hate speech”, with Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s vice president likening it to terrorism and vowing the government will no longer tolerate it. Although Osinbajo never defined what exactly he or the government meant by hate speech, the army provided a precise definition when it announced through its director of defence information, that it was creating “strategic media centres to monitor social media in order to sieve and react to all anti-government, anti-military, and anti-security propaganda.”
With this, the government could conveniently lump any statement or criticism by group or persons which caused it consternation, into its amorphous definition of hate speech and promptly clamp down on such groups or persons.
Away from the centre, many state governors, most prominently Kaduna state, have been clamping down on free speech on social media. As we write, many Nigerians are in jail undergoing trials and some have simply disappeared without trace for criticising public officials.
Nigerians must not allow the government to turn the country into a police state. If there is one thing history has taught us in Nigeria, it is that we must never allow the government to draw the borders of free speech. Nigeria is a democracy and not a theocracy or monarchy. Criticisms, dissent and free speech comes with it. As Harry Truman will say, you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
