Frivolous Charges: Their Secret Plot To Silence Sowore For A Long Time

Treason & Cyber Crime Charges: Their Secret Plot To Put Sowore Away For A Long Time

Recently, the founder of Sahara group reporter and presidential candidate under the platform of the AAC was arrested for planning a protest tagged RevolutionNow. He was by order of the court kept in custody pending investigations. After months in detention, charges which include treason and cybercrime were brought against him. I hope and honestly do pray that counsel to Sowore would do the needful so that those charges can be thrown out for want of diligent prosecution.

In law, treason is a criminal disloyalty to the state. It is a crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against ones nation or sovereign. This usually includes things such as participating in a war against ones nation or country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power or attempting to kill its head of state.

A person who commits treason is called a traitor.

Now, from the above explanation, would anyone say Sowore really is guilty of treason? For now, it is for the court to decide but that does not take away one’s freedom of thought which brings to my submission that Sowore can’t be seen as a traitor or an enemy of the state. He is only a concerned citizen who feels, like many of us, that the government isn’t doing enough and should be put on their toes.

I believe that what he did might at best be seditious rather than treasonable.

Sedition can be aptly defined as an act, speech or publication that is done with a seditious intention which has also be defined by the provisions of S.50(2) of the criminal code.

It provides;

“A seditious intention is an intention to bring into hatred or contempt or excite disaffection against the person of the president or the governor of a state or the government of the federation; or to excite the citizens or other inhabitants of Nigeria to attempt to procure the alteration, otherwise than by lawful means, of any other matter in Nigeria as established by law; or to raise discontent or disaffection amongst the citizens or other inhabitants of Nigeria; or to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of the population.

One would be tempted to think that the reason the charge of treason as against sedition was brought against Sowore is for the sole aim of putting him away for a long time.

Sowore and others like him represent the mighty opposition while the rest of us are mere commoners. We can never be heard unless we are united and speak with one voice.

About the author: Kekemeke Opakemiyentimi Joshua writes from Ibadan.