Senator Bob Memendez of New Jersey has said that the United States will reassess its relationship with Nigeria considering the apparent slide of the country into dictatorship under President Muhammadu Buhari.
The senator said this in a press conference on Friday in New Jersey as he reacted to the desecration of a court of law by agents of Nigeria’s secret police – Department of State Services (DSS) in an unprecedented lawlessness a they rearrested the political activist and publisher of Saharareporters.
Mr Memendez described the violation of Sowore’s rights as unacceptable, calling on Nigeria to release him forthwith.
According to him, he has spoken with the US ambassador to Nigeria and will press the State Dept in the days ahead for steps to be take to reassess US relation with Nigeria.
He said, “The US is watching, the world is watching; the arrest of Mr Sowore, an activist and journalist, whose only crime is exercising his right of free expression is becoming symptomatic of increasingly closing political and and civic space in Nigeria.”
He frowned at the refusal of the Nigerian State to release Sowore despite the fact that the court had twice ordered his release. It leaves him to conclude that either the country does not respect the rule of law of the president is out of touch with what his security agents are doing in his name, he said.
He warned that there would be consequences for Nigeria should any harm befall Sowore.
Sowore’s wife, Opeyemi said she has been shaken to her core with what she saw – the “strangling” of her husband by DSS operatives in utter disregard of the rule of law.
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