By Eric Elezuo
Not a few people could contain their amusement and laughter when it was reported that two political prisoners held by the Federal government were released out of compassion rather than people’s outcry or even the threat from the United States of America’s senators and congressmen.
To many, it was a comic relief necessary for the boiling point tension that has engulfed the length and breadth of the country as a result of the hunger ravaging the land and so many other inanities that seem not to have an escape route.
The Federal Government has prior to Christmas announced the release of the Presidential candidate of African Action Congress (AAC) in the February 2019 election and convener, RevolutionNow Protest, Mr. Omoyele Sowore, and former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki from detention after ignoring countless court orders to release them. While Sowere was arrested in his Magodo home on August 3, 2019, 48 hours before his planned RevolutionNow protest, Dasuki was arrested on December 29, 2015 and has been in detention ever since.
Responding to criticism and mockery from members of the public that the duo was released because a few lawmakers of the United States signed a letter addressed to the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, Mr. Abubakar Malami, the FG said that was far from the truth, adding that they were released based on compassion which the government has.
The government’s assertion begins to make one wonder when and how was this new found compassion developed? It would be recalled that the same Dasuki has been granted bail by a competent court on over four occasions, but the government’s compassion was practically unavailable at the time to do the right thing. In November 2016, Dasuki lost his father, the deposed Sultan of Sokoto, but he was not at the funeral, though the then Minister of Internal Affairs, Abdulrahman Danbazzau, told Nigerians Dasuki refused to either visit his father in the hospital or attend his funeral.
Then again, Nigerians ask, where was the Federal government’s compassion when the whole nation cried out over Sowore; when his wife and children cried out for the release of their bread winner; where was the compassion Malami talked about?
And without even going too far, where is the compassion of the Buhari administration as Nigerians weep over hunger, death traps called roads, poverty, inadequate and zero (depending on the part of the town you live) electricity? Where is the government’s compassion as borders remained closed in spite of national and international cry? The worse is the case that no government official has been seen eating the local rice for which the borders were closed. Where is the compassion when the populace are languishing in abject poverty while the men at the helm of affairs use the best of foreign goods. Compassion or hypocrisy?
If the government of President Muhammasdu Buhari claims to have a dose of compassion, there are many journalist who have been incarcerated for just doing their jobs; there are still the likes of Agba Jalingo. Malami and Buhari’s government’s compassion should as a matter of urgency extend to them.
This government should wake up as a matter of urgency and use the so called compassion to address the plight of the Nigerian populace. There is crisis in the land, and a whole lot of milk of human kindness, which the present administration called compassion is needed, and now too.
