Publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, has challenged the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, to release the audio tape of late business mogul, Isa Funtua and other newspaper publishers’ visit to him while in custody of the DSS last year.
He also dared him to release the audio tape of the late Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, asking the Department of State Services to detain him till 2023.
Sowore said this in a Facebook post while reacting to Shehu’s threat that he would ask the DSS to release a tape recording of the visit of Isa Funtua, who died on Monday, and other newspaper publishers to him while in custody of the DSS last year.
Read Also: Breaking: Isa Funtua, Buhari’s Close Associate, Is Dead
The activist had in an interview claimed that Shehu along with Funtua, the Publisher of Vanguard newspapers, Sam Amuka; and his Thisday newspaper counterpart, Nduka Obaigbena, visited him during his four-month detention in the DSS last year and asked him to set aside his radical views so that they could help negotiate his release.
In his response, Shehu slammed Sowore for saying they came to ‘negotiate’ with him and threatened to get the DSS to release a tape recording of the visit if Sowore did not stop making such claims.
First, it is important to state that the meeting was not instructed by the government. Nobody sent anybody to go and “negotiate” Sowore’s freedom as he put it.
— Garba Shehu (@GarShehu) July 21, 2020
The President’s aide also asked Sowore to let Funtua rest in peace and stop telling lies against him.
The activist has now responded by daring the President’s aide to release the tape.
Sowore also explained that the trending interview on Funtua was not new but an old one which only began circulating after his demise on Monday.
The Sahara Reporters publisher also asked Shehu to release the tape recording of the late Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari ordering the DSS to keep him in detention till 2023 when the tenure of the President Muhammadu Buhari would have expired.
He said;
Release a tape of the visit and the tape recording of the late Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari ordering the DSS to keep him in detention till 2023.
Earlier this evening (Tuesday evening), Buhari’s spokesperson Garba Shehu responded to my video where i described my encounter with late Isa Funtua, a member of Buhari’s cabal who led a delegation including Garba Shehu to meet me in detention apparently to pressure to abandon #RevolutionNow. It is important that contrary to Mr. Shehu’s vituperations, this video was an excerpt of my Instagram intervention with journalist, Seye Kehinde while Isa Funtua was still very much alive.
Sowore added;
I responded to Garba Shehu on twitter as below:
1. Glad you admitted you led a delegation to meet me in DSS detention because the delegates said you arranged it. #revolutionNow
2. It is very true that I was nice to your team because you weren’t my problem, you were just an errand boy. In fact I patted you on the back saying I had never met you before and fairness, you were respectful but I knew you were there on a hatchet job.
I urge you to release the tape, but don’t forget to release tapes of convos between COS Abba Kyari and DSS DG asking that my detention should last for the duration of the Buhari’s regime in 2023 because Sahara Reporters did a report that revealed that he collected N500m from MTN.
Why can’t you be honest for once in your life, when you came to meet me in detention what was your intention, what would have constituted the conditions for my release? Who would have ordered my release, Isa Funtua? What powers did Funtua have to get me released?
He added;
My insistence then got Isa Funtua riled and he said that my lawyer was only grandstanding and that he too had been imprisoned by Buhari in 1983 and that no one can defeat the government. Your wicked self kept quiet but Nduka noticing I was upset took me to the DO’s ante room.
When I arrived downstairs I made a telephone call to my lawyer, Femi Falana in the presence of the DSS officials telling him that I do not want to negotiate my freedom and that when he meets your team he should restate my position, he did exactly that, your team got upset again.
Soon as I made that call to Falana I was stopped from ever making any further calls until my continued detention became an INT’L issue, I was then offered a bugged cell phone with which I granted an interview to Premium Times, while I was calling my family the phone was seized.
Please also present a tape of your meeting my lawyer in Lagos, because he told your team that asking me to renounce #RevolutionNow would amount to suicide, because o expressly told him that was the plan but that we can’t go back on #RevolutionNow!
Sowore, who is the leader, #RevolutionNow movement, was arrested by the DSS on August 2, 2019 for calling for a revolution.
He was denied bail by the government despite court orders but was eventually released on December 24, 2019. The activist is still facing charges before a Federal High Court.
