Contempt for the law highest under Buhari – Wole Soyinka

Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka says the Buhari administration has witnessed the highest contempt of law in Nigeria.

Soyinka was reacting to the refusal of the Department of State Services (DSS) to obey court orders and release  Omoyele Sowore, convener of the #RevolutionNow Movement, who has been granted bail twice.

The DSS arrested Sowore on August 3 and he is standing trial on seven counts of treasonable felony, fraud, cyber-stalking and “insulting the president”.

In a statement likening thuggery to state disobedience, the literary icon said Nigerian judiciary, since his youthful days to the present, is not “a model of perfection”.

Soyinka said since 1999, there seems to be a competition among succeeding governments as to which is “the most notorious Scofflaw in the field of democratic pretensions”.

“I have no hesitation in admitting that I have a personal, formative interest in the health of the Nigerian judiciary, deeper perhaps than the average Nigerian,” Soyinka said.

“It would be most surprising if my own brush with the law has not crossed my mind since the predicament of Omoyele Sowole, journalist and former presidential candidate began. The Nigerian judiciary was not thereby, nor is today a model of perfection.

Wole Soyinka further said that the legal arm of government in Nigeria, like other African countries, is under siege.

He added that however, the judiciary has also not done enough to defend itself from “illegal power”.

According to him, if security agencies were to detain those referred to as revolutionists, half of Nigeria’s population would be in detention.