We Declined Deal To Apologize To Buhari To Get Sowore Released – Falana

Femi Falana, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), has revealed that he declined a deal on behalf of Omoyele Sowore from a delegation led by late Isa Funtua and other publishers of media outlets for the activist to apologise to President Muhammadu in order to be released from the Department of State Services detention where he was held from August 3 to December 24, 2019.

Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, had earlier threaten to release a tape of the visit to Sowore on the event that he (Sowore) continues to make unsubstantiated remarks about late Isa Funtua.

Falana stated that Shehu was not being truthful and must be having a memory loss on the true state of events that transpired.

Shehu had while responding to a Facebook post by Sowore, claimed that the activist gave a different picture of what happened during the meeting with Funtua and others in Abuja, threatening to have the DSS release video of the event to set the records straight.

Speaking further, he claimed that another meeting with Sowore’s lawyer in Lagos by the delegation, led to the collapse of the deal to get the activist out of detention at the time.

Sowore on the other hand dared Shehu to release the video of the meeting in DSS facility, noting that the Presidential aide was a man, who spoke from different sides of his mouth.

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

Giving his side of the story on Thursday, Falana said he rejected the request by the delegation led by Funtua, a member of Buhari’s cabal, to prevail on Sowore to apologise to the President and write an undertaking to desist from further embarrassing the Nigerian Government.

Falana said, “Mr Garba Shehu has continued to give the highly erroneous impression that the deal struck with the captive was frustrated by his lawyer. Since Mr Shehu’s memory failed him in his jejune narrative, he said that 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.

“Mr Shehu ought to have published the terms of the “resolution” which he claimed that Sowore had accepted instead of of blaming the collapse of the “fence-mending process” on the intransigence of his lawyer “whoever that was (sic)”.

“I confirm that I held a meeting with the trio referred to by Mr Shehu even though he did not mention my name. Hence, I am compelled to react to a couple of issues raised in his incendiary account. More so that he did not attend the Lagos meeting. For reasons best known to Mr Shehu, he refused to inform the Nigerian people that I rejected the gratuitous request to prevail on Mr Sowore to apologise to President Muhammadu Buhari and write an undertaking to desist from further embarrassing the federal government. Apart from insisting that my client had committed no offence by exercising his freedom of expression over the perilous state of the nation.

ALSO READ: US Rights Commission To Honour Sowore As ‘Prisoner Of Conscience’

“I expressed my personal agony over the request because I won the legal battle wherein the Court of Appeal had upheld the fundamental right of the Nigerian people to protest against the government without police permit. Mr Shehu ought to have equally disclosed that I demanded for the unconditional release of my client from the unlawful incarceration of the State Security Service. In fact, when the late Alhaji Isa Funtua said rather condescendingly at the Lagos meeting that the regime in power could not be defeated I was quick to remind him that the Nigerian people had defeated military dictators to pave way for the current civilian dispensation.

“In particular, I recalled the case of Isa Funtua vs The President wherein the plaintiff had challenged the obnoxious newspaper registration decree enacted by the Ibrahim Babangida junta in 1993. For goodness sake, is Mr Shehu not aware of the fact that Mr. Sowore was charged with treasonable felony, money laundering and insulting President Buhari for daring to call off the bluff of the federal government?

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“It is interesting to note I had teamed up with other patriots in 2006 to campaign for the restoration of the liberty of Mr Garba Shehu (who was then the spokesman for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar) when he was detained by the State Security Service and charged before the Federal High Court with the offence of “obtaining, reproducing and keeping classified material” in contravention of the Official Secrets Act.

ALSO READ: JUST IN: Detainee, Sowore Departs DSS Facility As FG Orders His Release

Falana added, “Happily, the charge filed against Mr Shehu by the forces of incipient fascism in the country was withdrawn and struck out in his favour. In like manner, the charge of treasonable felony which is hanging menacingly on the head of Mr Omoyele Sowore like a sword of Damocles will also be struck out in his favour in the fullness of time.”

Sowore was arrested in the early hours of August 3, 2019 by operatives of the Department of State Services for anchoring the “Revolution Now” peaceful protest, on August 5 to demand a better country from the administration of President Buhari.

He was kept in unlawful detention until December 24 when he was released on bail and is forbidden from speaking to journalists and remain confined to Abuja as some of the conditions given to him on bail.