Lasun Alagbe
It is a historical day for two prominent Nigerians – Sambo Dasukji and Omoyele Sowore – as they have been released from detention.
The Federal Government had held them despite orders of the court that they be released on bail.
The Department of State Security has been at the forefront of the duo’s controversial detention.
For Dasuki, a former chief security adviser during the Jonathan government, the freedom seems to have been too long in coming.
He had been held since 2015, making him the political officer to have been so detained for the longest time in recent years.
He is accused of misappropriating $2bn security fund, allegedly sharing it out to different people and organisations towards mobilising for Jonathan’s reelection.
While some of the ‘beneficiaries’ have refunded the monies they collected or part of such, the government considered it unwise to release him.
Unfortunately for him, there was hardly anyone to plead his cause.
Although judges expressed dissatisfaction over his continued incarceration, his case was different from that of Sowore that of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria leader, Ibrahim El-Zakzakky, w whose followers have been agitating to get released.
Their protests have turned bloody at some moments, leading to the death of some security officials and members of the movement.
But the most heated protests in recent times have centred on Sowore, who incurred the ire of the government when he led the RevolutionNow group.
Because of his media and human rights activism background, he was able to engender widespread condemnation of the DSS’s refusal to release him.
The agency itself went overboard when it swooped on him in the courtroom, where it rearrested him after initial recalcitrance.
The continued agitation within and outside the country eventually paid off, and, observers would say, it is the success for the campaign for Sowore’s release that impacted positively on Dasuki.
The reason is that life would apparently still have continued in prison for Dasuki, if there was no collateral push over Sowore.
Dasuki’s ;lawyer, Ahmed Raji, however believes what is most important now is that his client has been released.
According to him, he has spent more than the time he would have spent in prison even if he had been convicted for some of the allegations against him.
