A popular human rights lawyer, Femi Falana SAN has said that late Isa Funtua led a delegation which tried to convince him to compel his client, Omoyele Sowore of Sahara Reporters, to apologise to President Muhammadu Buhari in a bid to bring an end to his travails.
He said that this occurred while Sowore was detained for four months by the Department of State Services (DSS) in 2019.
In a Thursday statement titled, ‘On the collapse of secret meetings designed to compromise Omoyele Sowore in custody’, Falana noted that he rejected the offer.
The rights lawyer said he equally rejected the delegation’s request for Sowore to write an undertaking to stop embarrassing the Federal Government as a condition for getting him released from detention.
He disclosed that Funtua said during the meeting held in Lagos that a government in power could not be defeated.
Falana said he reminded the president’s ally that the Nigerian people fought against military rule and overcame.
Falana said Funtua led the team which also comprised two media owners – Sam Amuka-Pemu, owner of Vanguard newspapers; Nduka Obaigbena, owner of Thisday newspapers – and Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu.
The senior lawyer said he felt obligated to make the clarification following claims made by Shehu about the meeting he had with the delegation.
He described Shehu’s account of the meeting as “erroneous” and “incendiary”.
Shehu had released a statement after Sowore granted an interview to his online medium on Tuesday, after Funtua’s death on Monday, detailing the role played by the late ally of the president to get him to put aside his “revolutionary views” as a condition for getting released from DSS custody.
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