Omoyele Sowore, the African Action Congress’ (AAC) presidential candidate for 2023, was detained by the Department of State Services (DSS) upon his arrival from the United States but was subsequently freed.
Sowore announced his detention on Sunday in a post on X, noting that the security service had also confiscated his foreign passport.
“My international passport was confiscated by @Nigerian Immigration and I was detained,” he stated. My passport was taken by Nigerian Immigration when I arrived at the MMIA in Lagos, having just arrived in the country from the United States. They informed me that they were under orders to keep me.
This is not surprising, since I have always understood it to be a component of the fascist @officialAbat regime’s larger crackdown on dissent, motivated by their dread of the impending #FearlessINOctober uprising. I implore our countrymen to make sure that ALL put an end to tyranny by any means reasonable and necessary in the event that this turns into another lengthy and drawn-out incarceration by taking part in the planned series of direct actions scheduled for October 1st and beyond.
Marshal Abubakar, his friend and attorney for Femi Falana Chambers, confirmed the arrest to ARISE News in Abuja via a brief WhatsApp message on Sunday. Security authorities had earlier put Sowore on their watch list.
He exclaimed, “OMG!!!” When Comrade Omoyele Sowore arrives in Nigeria, immigration agents detain him at the international airport in Lagos without an arrest warrant or order. The Nigerian authorities have not disclosed to him the reasons behind his unauthorized imprisonment either.
When pressed for specifics, he claimed that Sowore had spoken with him and that the prior order to arrest him from the DSS Director-General had influenced their decision.
A few hours had passed since Sowore had informed the world on social media that the secret police were about to detain him.
But in a statement, Abubakar stated, “I spoke with him, he has been released.”
