THE #FreeNnamdiKanuNow protest organiser, Omoyele Sowore, has restated his readiness to lead Nigerians to Aso Rock Villa on Monday, October 20, to demand the release of the leader of proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.
He stated this on Friday, October 17, and emphasised his call for the protest on Saturday, October 18, after a Federal High Court in Abuja rejected the Nigeria Police Force request to stop the planned protest.
The Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, had dispatched police lawyers to file an ex parte motion against Sowore in a bid to block the demonstration.
However, the court declined to grant the motion without hearing from the former presidential candidate. The judge, Mohammed Umar, directed the police to properly serve Sowore with the application and adjourned the case to Tuesday, October 21, for a full hearing.
Reacting to the ruling, Sowore hailed the court’s decision as a victory for civil rights and reaffirmed that the protest would proceed as planned.
In a statement on his X account on Friday, October 17, Sowore revealed that the Inspector General of Police had attempted to stop the protest through legal means, describing it as part of a broader pattern of state suppression.
“With the court adjourning the case to Tuesday, the protest scheduled for Monday remains unaffected by any legal restrictions,” he stated.
According to him, the #FreeNnamdiKanuNow protest aims to draw attention to the continued detention and worsening health of the IPOB leader.
On Saturday, October 18, Sowore drew parallels between Kanu’s situation and the events surrounding the June 12, 1993, presidential election, recalling how the military regime at the time used the judiciary to delay justice and silenced dissents.
“I was deeply involved in the struggle for the validation of the June 12 election, and I remember vividly how the system weaponised the judiciary to buy time, deceive the public, and justify injustice,” he said.
“They kept saying, ‘Abiola’s case is in court,’ until they eventually killed him a day before his supposed release. It was a well-orchestrated tragedy disguised as legal processes,” he added.
He alleged that the same tactics were being deployed against Nnamdi Kanu, citing manipulation, propaganda, and abuse of legal processes as tools of oppression.
“The Nnamdi Kanu I saw in court on October 16 is very ill. We must rescue him before another citizen is sacrificed to the bloodthirsty Nigerian elite club,” Sowore stated.
Fatimah Quadri is a Journalist and a Fact-checker at The ICIR. She has written news articles, fact-checks, explainers, and media literacy in an effort to combat information disorder.
She can be reached at sunmibola_q on X or fquadri@icirnigeria.org