Sowore’s Audacity Of Consistence -By Steve Ogah

Whether for his unflinching commitment to public and common good, whether for his congenital blustery approach to sacred issues, even whether for his predilection for daring the oligarchs and entrenched narrow interests, Omoyele Sowore; perhaps, remains Nigeria’s most persecuted and misunderstood activist in living memory. He has lost his inalienable freedom so frequently and frightfully that observers and dutiful journalers of his sadistic travails in the hands of suppressive agents of state, have since closed their log books.

But history, politics and philosophy stand on the same tripod and are so close to one another that each area of intellectual peregrination must begin to interrogate the extraordinary elements in the seemingly careless manner, the fearless Sowore has been able to confront malfunctioning Nigerian leaders in a rare audacity of consistence, spanning decades.

Sowore’s current freedom is radically different from the freedom most of us know and are grumbling with. Our freedom is bland, yet Sowore is relishing a variant far more disgusting, to him and all enlightened minds. Confined to the rocks and monotony of Abuja, and quarantined against his will, the inveterate mass freedom agitator for the common man has not renounced his activist’s vow, taken at birth and consolidated in the furnaces of the 90s sadistic military socio-economic mutilators.

It was at the university of Lagos, that the then effervescent Geography and Regional planning undergraduate immersed himself in the scorching flames of activism, courting the restless society of human rights activists and campus welfare agitators. He soon emerged as the student union president of his time at the university, joining ranks with other activists outside campus to the audacious point of sharing a stage with MKO Abiola, wholesome winner of the June 12, 1993 elections. That election itself created political history as the first election in these parts of the world, where the winner, whether presumed, imagined or real, never saw the office he had contested for and clinched, while still alive. Indeed, it was an age of political rarity, recklessness and reluctance on the part of the panel of adjudicators of the political match ups of that period. Not deterred by his evil experiences in the hands of the army’s torture masters, and the demons that lay ahead, Omoyele Sowore stood his grounds even during the interment of the embodiment of the hopes of the good majority of Nigerians, Chief MKO Abiola. He ensured that no traitor masquerading as a genuine teary sympathizer got close to the beacon of hope who had been put out in a premature and premeditated way. This itself is significant in that many fickle minded pretenders to the throne of agitators had since fallen by the wayside, while Sowore and his likes fought to protect and uphold the dignity of Abiola.

Sowore confronted another specie of the monster of oppression from authorities at school who ensured graduation was distorted by bureaucratic irrelevancies dictated by powers who had been burnt badly by his complete commitment during the defining thorny political frenzy of his era. But decades on, and the world has since grown to recognize and honor this rare icon of mass struggles. Not many from that era which forged him, are still burning with the same bright flame as Sowore.

Quite a number of activists and political agitators from the 90s slotted themselves into the military’s transition program and ended up taking juicy constituencies in the aftermath of the evil and abhorrent turmoil called military interregnum. A perfunctory look through the history books will reveal that many of Sowore’s contemporaries have tasted and are still savoring the juices of political offices while he has been denied the freedom to even watch political, social and religious actors freely through the lens of his citizens journalism. His greatest crime to date remains his blunt refusal to renounce activism and embrace cronyism and kleptomania. And not that his former comrades in the field stand guilty through court pronouncements in the land. But his journalism and person have been victims of a number of law suits both in this country and outside of it. And one begins to wonder why restless Omoyele Sowore just won’t let kleptocrats steal in peace? Why is he so bothered about what goes on within the corridors of power? Why is he fighting for the common good in the manner of Julius “Juju” Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa and the parliamentarian Robert “Bobi Wine” Ssentamu in Uganda?

But while Juju and the EFF in south Africa have obsessed themselves with the expropriation of land without economic compensation, because majority of land is in the hands of the privileged whites, Bobbi Wine is concerned about shooing gerontocrats away from the corridors of power In East Africa; in the same manner that Sowore is tired of the same old nomadic faces in the political arena who have only succeeded in changing the fortunes of their families, mistresses and close friends, while majority of Nigerians swim in shark-infested socio-economic waters and walk in the valley of the shadow of death, literally; where life has since become loutish and short. Most thrive in this country by sheer cunning and brute force or through political patronage, against a vast majority living with heads slightly above water. This is the crux of Sowore’s consistence.

Omoyele Sowore has remained consistent by the side of the poor and downtrodden despite the aristocracy and refinement his ivy league graduate education in the United States now confers on him. He has remained steadfast in mass struggles despite being sought after as a bride of politicians within high places. He has indicated that he aspires to be president because he wants his generation to make Nigeria enviable in the comity of democratic nations. He has remained consistent despite the possibilities of juicy cheap political appointments from successive governments. It is enchanting that Sowore has not held any appointments since the enthronement of democracy despite the fact that he fought for it and almost lost his life in the mad and wild days of the military.

Consistency in the face of provocation. Consistency in the face of the gun. Consistency in the face of loss of freedom. This is the audacity of consistence from Omoyele Sowore, lifelong friend of the poor, cheated and disenfranchised in Nigeria and elsewhere.

P.S: Steve Ogah is a creative writer and author of The African New Yorker.