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| Professor Wole Soyinka |
Nobel
Laureate Prof Wole Soyinka has faulted the Department of State Security’s
(DSS’s) classification of the planned protest of the #RevolutionNow group as
treasonable.
Soyinka,
in a statement yesterday, said: “Deployment of alarmist expressions such as “treason”,
“anarchist”, “public incitement” etc. by Security forces have become so
predictable and banal that they have become meaningless. Beyond the word
‘revolution, another much mis-used and misunderstood word, nothing that Sowore
has uttered, written, or advocated suggests that he is embarking on, or urging
the public to engage in a forceful overthrow of the government. Nothing that he said to me in private
engagement ever remotely approached an intent to destabilise governance or
bypass the normal democratic means of changing a government. I, therefore, find
the reasons given by the Inspector-General, for the arrest and detention of
this young ex-presidential candidate totally contrived and untenable,
unsupported by any shred of evidence. His arrest is a travesty and violation of
the fundamental rights of citizens to congregate and make public their
concerns.
“This
is all so sadly déjà vu. How often must
we go through this wearisome cycle? We underwent identical cynical contrivances
under the late, unlamented Sani Abacha, when he sent storm-troopers to disrupt
a planning session for a similar across-nation march at Tai Solarin School,
Ikenne. This was followed up by a personalised letter that was hand-delivered
by the State Security Services to me under their summons, at their Abeokuta
so-called ‘Annexe’ with near-identical wording to the threats contained in
today’s release from the desk of the Chief of Police. At least, I was summoned,
not subjected to a terrorist midnight arrest. Some irony!
“The
same pattern Pavlovian conduct manifested itself under yet another supposed
democratic ruler who personally declared that the gathering of civilians to
deliberate on, and propose a constitution for the nation was ‘high treason’,
and would be resisted by the full rigour of state power if we persisted. The
Inspector-General of Police mobilized his forces and issued inflammatory
proclamations, but PRONACO went ahead despite all the thundering from Aso
citadel. Can the police ever learn
anything also their tear-gassing and brutalizing of grieving mothers who
marched peacefully to protest the deaths of their children in a plane crash
inferno? Their mission, under that same regime, which was simply to deliver a
letter to the government house in Lagos, demanding greater safety in airline
operations, yet such a rational intent, born of traumatic circumstances, was
quashed on the sidewalks of a supposed twentieth-century nation.
“And
yet again, even a faceless cabal under yet another civilian regime refused to
be left out of the insensate play of power. A march on Aso Rock calling for an
end to governance by a ghostly entity was slated to be crushed, but
fortunately, a conflicting balance of interests decided in favour of a reduced
trajectory of protest. And so on and on and on, in a nation which continues to
speak at once through both sides of the mouth, spewing out the same Treason
monotone as if this was a magic incantation that could substitute for the
venting of mass feelings, even as collective therapy!
“May
I invite the Inspector-General to wade through the daily journals of the past
few weeks and months, read and digest the calls by numerous sectors of society
– across professions and national groupings – for demonstrations against the
parlous conditions of society, all identifying ills to which attention must be
drawn, and urgently, through mass action? Demonstrations and processions are
time-honoured, democratic ways of drawing not only the attention of the
government to ills but of mobilising the public towards a proactive
consciousness of their condition, and thereby exhorting civil society also to
devise means of ameliorating their condition through their own efforts?
Religious bodies have urged such remedies, so have civic associations. The
ready recourse to arrests, incarceration and threats to civilians are
ultimately counter-productive. They alienate the citizens, erode their
confidence in governance responsiveness, and thereby advance the very extremist
nightmare that security agencies believe they are acting to thwart.
“If
we cannot learn from the histories and experiences of other societies, let us
at least learn from ours. Freedom is not so glibly qualified. It cannot be
doled out like slops of charity from soup kitchens. Let the Police stick to
their task of protecting and managing protests, not attempt to place their own
meaning and declaration of intent on bogey words like – revolution!”
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