By Nwabueze Okonkwo

ONITSHA—A civil society group, International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, Intersociety, has charged the Federal Government to order the Director-General, DG of Department of State Services, DSS, to release detained Publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore and others with immediate effect, in the interest of democracy.

Sowore

Intersociety, in a statement yesterday in Onitsha, Anambra State, “regrets that the same government that  is  sponsoring  by proxy, anti-Amnesty International protests can turn around to declare dissenting street protesters as persona non grata in Nigeria and their protests as ‘terrorism’ or ‘treason’.”

In the statement, entitled Unchecked Killings & Shrinking of Civil Space: DSS, Army & Police Now Official Enemies of Democracy in Nigeria, by the society’s leader, Emeka Umeagbalasi, Intersociety contended that by constantly shrinking the civil space, the Police, Army and DSS are pushing Nigerians not only dangerously to the wall but also to the point of radical self-help or underground radicalisation, capable of quadrupling and escalating the country’s criminal enterprises or industries.

It further contended that by treating Nigerian criminals and their entities with kid gloves and treating the law-abiding citizens the hard way, the Police, Army and DSS are licensing all Nigerians to become criminals and lawless, thereby turning the country into a jungle where only the fittest survives.

Detained Nnewi traders regain freedom(Opens in a new browser tab)

“If this is allowed,” it said, “ then rifles in the possession of these daft security agencies will become toys or mere boxes of fire matches.”

According to Intersociety, “the Nigerian democracy has speedily moved from its daily deterioration and degeneration in present  time to hourly same, with what remains as its infinitesimal semblances disappearing without traces.

“To add salt to injury, the Army, the Police and the DSS have now unveiled themselves as official enemies of democracy in Nigeria.

“This they now share in common with the country’s malevolent and conscienceless political actors and the earthly paradised religious leaders as well as their foot-soldiers in the civil society including lawyers, activists, mainstream media practitioners and bloggers.”

Vanguard