The Take It Back Movement has decried the movement restriction placed on the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore, by a Federal High Court since 2019.
In a statement by its Global Director of Media and Communications, Chidi Nwanyanwu, sent to The PUNCH on Saturday, the group described as an unfair treatment that Sowore was not allowed to freely move beyond the coasts of Nigeria as the 2023 elections drew nearer.
The PUNCH reports that Sowore, after being arrested in August 2019 for convening the #RevolutionNow protest, was detained at the facility of the Department of State Services in Abuja, and was later charged for treasonable felony among others before being released on December 24, 2019.
The 2019 protest, which later held across the country, was, according to the group, seeking the government’s intervention on issues bordering on education, health, workers’ wage, security, and the economy, as they affected the masses.
Sowore was, thereafter, put under city arrest, and was not allowed to leave the Federal Capital Territory until a Court of Appeal in Abuja lifted the movement restriction within the country on April 13, 2022.
He is, however, still restricted by a court order from travelling out of the country, as his passport was seized.
Decrying the scenario, the TIB Movement said, “Sowore is the only presidential candidate in the forthcoming general election in Nigeria whose freedom of movement is being restricted by an unjust court order. This restriction placed on his freedom of movement has, by consequence, given his opponents in the race, an unfair advantage over him.
“While other candidates aren’t hindered from campaigning to Nigerians living at home and in the diaspora, Sowore of the AAC has been restricted to Nigeria by an unjust court order.”
“In flagrant disregard for two different court orders, Mr. Sowore was subsequently held in the DSS custody for five months. 33 months after his release from the DSS custody, the Buhari’s APC regime has totally abandoned the case in court.
“With the inability of the regime to prove any of its trumped up charges in court, it is now evident that the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.)’s All Progressives Congress-led government is simply using the court as a tool for the suppression of Mr. Sowore’s movement,” the group claimed.
It further noted that the restriction implied that “while the presidential candidate of the ruling party, the APC’s Bola Tinubu, and other presidential candidates can travel to campaign/share their ideas to Nigerians living in the diaspora, and seek their support, Sowore has been unfairly been prevented from doing same.
“With this, his main opponent, the ruling APC, and the rest of the presidential candidates in the race have been given an unfair advantage over the AAC and its presidential candidate, Sowore.”
The statement further alleged that the AAC and Sowore were already being rigged out of the election “by its main opponent, the ruling APC,” saying that “this alone, makes a mockery of the entire electoral process and cast very strong aspersion on the credibility of the elections.”
“The 2023 general election cannot be adjudged free and fair so long one of its participants is being deliberately rigged out before the election begins.
“It is to this end that we call on Nigerians, all lovers of freedom, and the international community to prevail on the ruling APC government to lift the restrictions placed on Mr. Sowore, the presidential candidate of the opposition AAC party, and allow him to campaign freely,” the statement concluded.
