Citizen Freedoms and Nigeria's Story of Permanent Unease

What are the permissible boundaries for intelligence and policing actors in a democracy? And who defines the limit of freedom of expression in a democracy?

Written by Tosin Osasona

Jan 22, 2020

Omoyele Sowore speaks onstage at TEDGlobal 2014 JAMES DUNCAN DAVIDSON/TED

At around 1:25 a.m. on 3 August 2019, operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) arrested Mr Omoyele Sowore, a long-time human rights activist. Sowore had contested during the 2019 presidential election and came a distant tenth, gaining 0.12 per cent of all votes cast. His arrest was, purportedly, for organizing the #RevolutionNow national protests against perceived poor governance in Nigeria. Scheduled for 5 August 2019, the protest was disrupted by the police in Lagos and other parts of Nigeria, who tagged it ‘expressly outlawed and treasonable’.

The unsavoury chain of events that started in the early morning of 3 August 2019 came to a defining climax on 6 December 2019 with the invasion of the Federal High Court in Abuja, when operatives of the SSS forced Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu to abruptly stop the ongoing court session. The move was widely condemned within and outside Nigeria. The Nigerian Bar Association called the invasion ‘brutish and irresponsible’ and demanded the immediate suspension of the Director-General of the SSS. The Nigerian Union of Journalists described the event as the ‘violation of the sanctity of the court’ and The Nigerian National Assembly (both the House of Representatives and the Senate) called for an investigation into the invasion. The robustness and intensity of the condemnation that followed the illegality of the SSS has since forced the Attorney General of the Federation to take over the case.

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About the Author

Tosin Osasona

is a senior research associate at the Center for Public Policy Alternatives, Lagos. He is interested in policy-centered interventions focusing on effective, efficient and accountable service delivery by Nigeria’s security and justice agencies.

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Citizen Freedoms and Nigeria's Story of Permanent Unease