The 2023 presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, has asserted that the government is more afraid of unarmed protesters than violent threats.
News360 Info reports that Sowore made this known during an interview on Arise Television on Wednesday, while condemning the government’s ongoing persecution of peaceful protesters.
Asked whether he believed the government feared demonstrators, Sowore said, “I do. I do completely. They are afraid of placards more than they are afraid of guns, because they have the capacity to respond to people who are shooting at the government, but they have no capacity, they have no ability, and they have no strategy to stop the majority.
“People in their light numbers carrying placards are more dangerous than people in their light numbers carrying guns.”
Speaking further, Sowore described the government’s handling of the treason trial against 11 #EndBadGovernance as baseless and politically motivated.
He said, “As it is typical of the Nigerian police, the prosecutors in this case, they came to court asking for an adjournment, claiming that the police officer who started the prosecution has been retired, which is false. He wasn’t retired. He was dismissed from the police force for altering his age. In the first place, the originator of the charges is also going to be facing charges in the next one week or so for altering his age.
“Those ones were minors, likely. Right. And because of the embarrassment involved in that, they quickly discontinued those charges. But for these ones, they want to continue to use them to discourage others who might get involved in peaceful protests in the future.”
