As more criticisms continue to trail the incident that led to the rearrest of the convener of #RevolutionNow protests, Omoyele Sowore, the Presidency has insisted the Department of State Services (DSS) acted within the law.
Appearing as a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, believes only a few people are unhappy with Sowore’s rearrest.
“You can’t just take the opinion of a vocal minority and then conclude that the country is in an uproar,” he said on Monday.
The presidential aide added, “When 100,000 (people) are making noise in the media – both social and traditional, you think the whole country is in an uproar.
“There are millions and millions and millions of people who are not bothered.”
“When you say a lot of Nigerians, you know that all these noise may be coming from less than 100,000 Nigerians and the noise will be so loud that you think it’s the whole country; it’s a country of 198 million people,” he stressed.
A Concocted Story?
On Friday last week, DSS operatives in at least three pickup trucks stormed the Federal High Court to rearrest Mr Omoyele Sowore who had just been released the previous day.
In a video uploaded on Channels Television’s YouTube page, a scuffle ensued inside the court after which Sowore was driven by his lawyer, Mr Femi Falana, to the DSS office where he was detained.
But the DSS has since denied the invasion of the court by its personnel, claiming that Sowore was mobbed by his supporters who shielded him.
In his reaction, Adesina defended the action of the Service and accused Falana – a Senior Advocate of Nigeria – of being biased.
He said, “Falana is not a neutral party; we know the side he belongs to in this matter. His opinion will not count much.
“We have had a concocted story, with concocted video or with incomplete video and then, the DSS has come out to give its own perspective and that then gives us a fairly balanced picture.”
The President’s spokesman, however, insisted that the DSS’ action was far from the desecration of the court while the Service has given an account of what transpired.
“It still will decide on the predilection of people what to believe but if you are fair-minded, balanced, or neutral, I’m sure you’ll have a balanced perspective of what happened.
“As far as I’m concerned, if you ask my opinion, I think what happened was not a desecration of the temple of justice as being portrayed because the DSS has explained how things played out,” he said.
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