Friday’s invasion of a court by operatives of the Department of State Security in their bid to re-arrest Omoyele Sowore has been totally condemned by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka.
Soyinka said dogs act more civilised than the operatives of the Department of State Services that stormed the Federal High Court, Abuja to re-arrest the Publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore.
Soyinka said this in a statement titled, ‘Lessons from the African Wild Dog (Lycaeon Pictus)’ on Friday.
He said, “A few years ago, I watched the video of a pack of the famed African wild dogs hunt, eventually bring down, and proceed to devour a quarry.
“It was an impala, antelope family. The pack isolated the most vulnerable looking member of the herd – it was pregnant – pursued it, until it fled to a waterhole which, for such animals, is the nearest thing to a sanctuary.
“A few minutes ago, almost as it was happening, I watched the video of a pack of the DSS bring down, and fight over their unarmed, totally defenceless quarry within the sanctuary of a court of law.
“I found little or no difference between the two scenarios, except that the former, the wild dogs, exhibited more civilised table manners than the DSS in court manners.”
The playwright recalled that only on Thursday in his commentary on the ongoing Sowore issue, he had pointed out the near-perfect similarity between plain crude thuggery and the current rage of court disobedience.
“Little did I suspect that the state children of disobedience would aspire to the level of the African wild dogs on a pack hunt,” he said.
Soyinka apologised for underestimating the shameful depths the DSS could go.
He reminded the Muhammadu Buhari government that obedience to court orders was the cornerstone of democracy.
The Nobel Laureate said, “May I remind this government that disobedience calls to disobedience, and that disobedience of the orders of the constitutional repository of the moral authority of arbitration – the judiciary – can only lead eventually to a people’s disregard of the authority of other arms of civil society, a state of desperation that is known, recognised and accepted as – civil disobedience.
“It is so obvious – state disobedience leads eventually to civil disobedience, piecemeal or through a collective withdrawal of recognition of other structures of authority. That way leads to chaos but – who set it in motion? As is often the case, the state, unquestionably. Such a state bears full responsibility for the ensuing social condition known as anomie.”
In its own reaction, PDP submitted that the furious invasion of the sanctity of the Court by the DSS operatives further confirmed that Nigeria, under the Buhari Presidency, is finally sliding into a frightening dictatorship.
The party, in its statement made available to PMParrot and signed by Kola Ologbondiyan alerted that the invasion of the court is a vindication of its earlier stand that the nation is no longer governed by democratic principles of rule or law and dictates of the constitution.
Said the party “today, the world watched with shock as operatives of the Presidency-controlled DSS, in a most horrific manner, swooped on the court, held the judiciary to ransom, disrupted proceedings, scared away the judge, chased away lawyers and journalists, attacked and re-arrested persons standing trial within the precincts of the court, in a manner that can only be obtainable in Idi Amin’s Uganda.
“The invasion is in a forceful suspension of our constitutional order and a further battering of the judiciary, which points to an emerging lawlessness that can only find space in a military regime.
“Without prejudice to the charge against the Convener of the “Revolution Now” movement, Mr. Omoyele Sowore, the PDP holds that, in a normal democracy, it is the duty of the court to determine the fate of an accused, according to the laws and not a resort to brute force by the government to silence persons with dissenting voices.
“Our party notes that such a violation, as embarrassingly witnessed in the Abuja court this weekend, is a direct invitation to anarchy and a huge threat to the unity, peace, stability and corporate existence of our nation and the safety of our citizens.
“Indeed, this is not the Nigeria our citizens yearn for and it is imperative to restate that Nigeria, under the Buhari Presidency, is fast sliding into a dark country where, laws are suspended, the judiciary is assaulted and citizens are stripped of their fundamental rights.
“The PDP calls on well meaning Nigerians and the international community to call the Buhari Presidency to order before its actions derail our nation and trigger a breakdown of law and order in the land.
“The international community must have more than a passing glance at the situation in Nigeria as any crisis in our country, God forbid, given our population, is capable of having a negative spill over effect across the African continent and other parts of the world.
“The PDP urges Nigerians across board, irrespective of political, religious and ethnic learnings, to unite in condemnation of dictatorial tendencies of the present administration and in defending our democracy and unity as a nation”.
Packaged by Olanrewaju Agiri and Kunle Daramola
