Posted by On Wednesday, Omoyele Sowore, a Nigerian activist and 2023 presidential candidate for the African Action Congress (AAC), said that seeing former president Muhammadu Buhari jailed and paying for his crimes against humanity would bring him the greatest delight.
Sowore claimed that in Nigeria, corrupt former leaders receive pensions while in more developed nations they would be arrested and tried for their crimes.
The AAC presidential candidate made this claim while speaking at an Abuja event commemorating the 2023 International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance. He said he hoped Buhari would be brought to justice for his crimes against Nigerians, either in Nigeria or before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Citing the case of the former United States president, Donald Trump, who has been charged with different crimes, Sowore noted that “Nigerian leaders who engage in corruption, abuse of human rights, are given red carpet reception every day and every night everywhere, including the one that just left (Buhari).
Instead of sending him directly to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Nigerian authorities sent him to a doctor in London as soon as he left the country.
“Because the force disappearance we are witnessing is negligible in comparison to the human rights violations committed by the Buhari dictatorship.
We’re not discussing the 3,000 Shia Muslims who were murdered in one night in Zaria after being falsely accused of being part of the Indigenous People of Biafra.
“The individual who did it was going to be made a minister; instead, he became a reggae singer and the governor of the state.
We should not be appealing to the government because Nigeria has seen too many of these horrific crimes — demeaning abuse and torture of its citizens. The perpetrators of the crimes are not the ones to whom we should be appealing.
It is imperative that the current and former leaders of Nigeria are held accountable for their actions while in and out of office.
One day, “I would love to see Buhari handcuffed to pay for his crimes, if not in this country, then at the International Criminal Court of Justice.”
Sowore continued by saying,
There is no time limit on these offenses. As long as you are alive, you can be penalized for the crime of force disappearance whether it was committed in 1960 or 2023.
Any member of the Nigerian armed forces, police force, or Department of State Services (DSS) is included in this warning.
The DSS officers act like they don’t have identities, backgrounds, or files. All of them are familiar to us. No matter how long it takes, those who have conspired against the Nigerian people must be held accountable for the harm they have caused.
Nothing can remain unchanged indefinitely. After retirement, some of them will have to start paying the price for their wrongdoing.