Omoyele Sowore, a human rights activist, has pledged to continue protesting against President Muhammadu Buhari’s terrible government even if he is left with one leg and confined to a wheelchair.
Sowore announced this in Abuja on Tuesday after having received treatment from the hospital, where he was injured by a gunshot on Monday.
CSP Altine Daniel, a policewoman, shot the former presidential candidate in the leg at close range during a peaceful protest against insecurity and poverty in the country.
After a team of doctors battled to preserve his life, he was released. The activist still has some trouble walking.
Despite the Buhari regime’s desperate attempts to quiet and eliminate him at all costs, the activist claimed he remained steadfast in his battle for a better Nigeria.
“If there is a protest today and somebody can put me in a wheelchair, I will go. Let them come and shoot me there but one thing I know for sure is that they won’t get away with this.
The regime is desperate and being desperate, they will do a lot of crazy things to discourage people like me and those that may follow our lead from challenging the incompetence, wickedness, cruelty and inhumane way the regime conducts its affairs,” He said,
As a result, he has called for Nigerians to demonstrate in large numbers on June 12 to protest against the government’s inexplicable killings, insecurity, poverty, corruption, and lousy governance.
According to him, he was shot at Unity Fountain while attending a peaceful rally against the country’s growing insecurity.
Femi Falana, a human rights lawyer, organized the rally (SAN).
The activist claimed that when the police saw him and his party, they immediately locked the fountain area’s gate, preventing them from entering.
According to the activist who described how he was shot, he was the intended target, and the goal was to take his life for challenging and speaking out against the country’s structural injustice.
“When we got to Unity Fountain, we engaged the police that it is our right to protest and the police need not to shut the gate against us but they refused.
At this point, I asked the Barrister beside me to reach the commissioner of police and he called him and put him on the speaker phone and we told him that it is despicable of the police to shut the gate and that it is our constitutional right to protest and he responded that he had no hand in it. He promised to talk to the people there to open the gate.
When I looked back, I discovered that about five trucks of policemen had arrived at the scene and we started singing solidarity songs and this was being live-streamed on my page at this point and from nowhere, this woman whom I later learnt was CSP in the police approached me with a gun, which is referred to as Federal Riot Gun. It looks like a double-barrelled gun. It is used in shooting projectiles or teargas. It is not meant to be shot at a person at such a close range.
She looked at me and said ‘Sowore! You are the one here and she shot me.’ I started noticing blood was running in my jean trousers. I discovered that I couldn’t walk anymore and I fell to the ground. Upon falling to the ground, she instructed her men to shoot more teargas in my direction apparently to prevent anybody from saving me.”, He said
While in the hospital, the human rights activist thanked Nigerians at home and abroad for their support and prayers.
Civil society organizations, attorneys, and activists have condemned the police action and demanded that the policewoman and her colleagues be arrested and prosecuted for attempted murder.
