Late Fautua: Buhari’s Aide, Sowore In War Of Words…Presidency To Release Tape Of Meeting

Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity was on Tuesday night locked in a verbal war with the Omoyele Sowore, Publisher of Sahara Reporters, over the role the presidency played during his arrest and detention by the DSS.

This followed Sowore’s claims that President Muhammadu Buhari’s late ally, Isa Funtua and other notable personality paid him a visit while he was in the DSS custody.

Sowore claimed that Funtua had asked him to put aside his ‘revolutionary views’ and stop fighting the government for him to be released.

His remarks came a day after Isa Funtua had died of cardiac arrest.

Reacting to the claims, Shehu said that Sowore was trying to distort what transpired and warned him to refrain from making certain claims about President Buhari’s late ally, Isa Funtua.

He noted that the Department of State Services may be forced to release a tape of Funtua and other newspaper publishers’ visit to the Publisher of Sahara Reporters.

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He said: “Let’s get the facts straight on the meeting with Sowore in SSS detention. First, it is important to state that the meeting was not instructed by the government. Nobody sent anybody to go and negotiate Sowore’s freedom as he put it.

“The late Malam Isma’ila (Funtua), on his own called me to ask that I broker a meeting with him and two others with the SSS, which they agreed to. It is important that I state that it was the force of Malam Isma’ila’s argument that made the meeting possible.

“Vanguard Newspapers publisher, Sam Amuka and ThisDay Publisher and President, Nigerian Press Organisation, Nduka Obaigbena, all agreed that Sowore was a ‘rascal’, who had used his newspaper ‘to abuse all of us,’ but agreed, nonetheless to go and press for his release.

“The meeting ended well, and contrary to the posturing by Sowore, he said he was happy with a resolution proposed but that his lawyer, whoever that was, needed to come on board. The fence-mending process apparently collapsed after the meeting of the trio with the lawyer in Lagos.

“Knowing the way the secret service works, it should surprise no one if they keep a recording of that meeting. Faced with this posturing and the unfair attacks on the dead, we certainly will be forced to ask for the release of tapes, in case they are available for the public to judge.”

Meanwhile, BIGPEN reports Sowore in a swift reaction, dared the presidential aide to release the tape of the meeting the trio had with him while in detention.

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He, however, in a multiple tweet, accused Shehu of being economical with the truth, alleging that it was President Buhari who allegedly sent Funtua to negotiate his release.

“Please also present a tape of your meeting my lawyer in Lagos, because he told your team that asking me to renounce #RevolutionNow would amount to suicide because I expressly told him that was the plan but that we can’t go back on #RevolutionNow!

“Glad you admitted you led a delegation to meet me in DSS detention because the delegates said you arranged it.

“It is very true that I was nice to your team because you weren’t my problem, you were just an errand boy. In fact, I patted you on the back saying I had never met you before you were respectful but I knew you were there on a hatchet job.

“I urge you to release the tape, but don’t forget to release tapes of convos btw COS Abba Kyari/DG DSS asking that my detention shd last for the duration of the @MBuhari regime in 2023 because @saharareporters did a report that revealed that he collected N500m from MTN.

“Why can’t you be honest for once in your life, when you came to meet me in detention what was your intention, what would have constituted the conditions for my release? Who would have ordered my release, Isa Funtua? What powers did Funtua have to get me released?

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“My insistence then got Isa Funtua riled and he said that my lawyer was only grandstanding and that he too had been imprisoned by Buhari in 1983 and that no one can defeat the government. Your wicked self kept quiet but Nduka noticing I was upset took me to the DO’s anteroom

“When I arrived downstairs I made a telephone call to my lawyer, Femi Falana in the presence of the DSS officials telling him that I do not want to negotiate my freedom and that when he meets your team he should restate my position, he did exactly that, your team got upset again.

“Soon as I made that call to Falana I was stopped from ever making any further calls until my continued detention became an INT’L issue, I was then offered a bugged cell phone with which I granted an interview to @PremiumTimesng, while I was calling my family the phone was seized”, he tweeted.

(By Israel Nwachukwu; additional reporting by Julius Eras-Olabowu)