Sowore, Others Flee for Their Lives as Police Fire Gunshots” — weaving in context, stakes, and implications.
Sowore, Others Flee for Their Lives as Police Fire Gunshots” — weaving in context, stakes, and implications.
Sowore, Others Flee for Their Lives as Police Fire Gunshots” — weaving in context, stakes, and implications.
When all the leaders of a peaceful protests are forced to scatter at the crack of gunshots, the message is chilling: dissent in Nigeria remains perilous. On Monday, amidst chants of “Free Nnamdi Kanu now” and other manifest calls for justice and constitutional rights in the country, the figure of Omoyele Sowore and many protest participants found themselves fleeing in panic as security forces unleashed tear gas and live fire rounds. What should have been a demonstration of civic courage instead became a scene of chaos, fear, and the stark reminder of a government dearly insecure about the power of collective voice.
Eyewitness reports and news dispatches to the public, it describe how, shortly after the protest began near the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja, security operatives police, army, civil defense swarmed the vicinity. The demonstrators, organized and peaceful in intent, had notified authorities in advance and intended to march, make their case and return. But tension escalated fast. Protesters say tear gas was fired, followed by gunshots that sent many scrambling for cover. Sowore himself was captured on video running alongside others, trying to escape the sudden onslaught. Authorities later claimed that “shots were fired into the air” to disperse the crowd and scare them away from the scene. Whether any bullets struck flesh is uncertain; the activist denied casualties among his followers. Meanwhile arrests were made, including of Nnamdi Kanu’s younger brother and his lawyer, allegedly beaten before being taken into custody.
This confrontation is not an isolated flashpoint. It emerges from a pattern: governments that, when faced with dissent, respond swiftly with force preferring suppression over dialogue, terrified of the potency of public opinion.
At its heart, what we witnessed is a tragic contradiction of the democratic ideal. How can citizens speak truth to power when the state treats their speech as a provocation to them and start violence after the process? When leaders call for justice or demand accountability, and are met not with debate but with tear gas and gunshots, politics ceases to be about ideas it becomes about survival.
It is telling that Sowore himself a long-time activist, journalist, and perennial thorn in establishment flesh was among those targeted. His history of resisting censorship and exposing abuses is well-known. To see him run for cover is a shocking visual: a symbol of how precarious dissent remains in Nigeria.
The state’s response betrays a deeper insecurity. What is it afraid of? That citizens will mobilize more, that demands will cohere into pressure, that legitimacy cracks Nigeria democracy. Rather than engage in the marketplace of ideas with debate, persuasion, reform the impulse is to silence, to intimidate, to fragment public will.
This posture is not only morally bankrupting the society, but also politically unwise. By turning protests into battlegrounds, the government risks further alienation, radicalization, erosion of trust, and international condemnation. It signals weakness, not strength.
We must ask: What happened to restraint? Where is the accountability for a security architecture that fires into spaces of this protest? The leadership, from the presidency down, must answer for this. If the courts restrained protests “around Aso Rock, National Assembly, Force Headquarters” via injunctions, security forces should act with proportionality and human rights in mind not as squads of terror.
Furthermore, if arrests were made some beaten then due process must prevail. Nobody should be above the law, and nobody should be denied justice under cover of force. The government must release any wrongfully detained persons, investigate abuses by officers, and ensure victims of violence have recourse.
To citizens: do not be cowed. The ability to protest is a right, not a gift. But protests must remain disciplined, nonviolent, strategic. The moral high ground is fragile; we must not allow provocateurs to drag us into violence. Resist the impulse to mimic force with anger; instead resist with clarity, consistency, and insistence on justice.
Recall the tragedy of October 2020 at Lekki Toll Gate, where soldiers allegedly opened fire on peaceful protesters of #endsars leaving dozens dead. That tragedy is not past; its shadow looms over every demonstration in Nigeria. The state’s impulse to shoot first and ask questions later is part of a legacy of militarized governance.
Sowore’s own biography is steeped in resistance to such repression. In the 1990’s, as a student he faced detention and violence for mobilizing against military rule. Yet today he flees bullets in broad daylight. That arc speaks volumes: we have progressed in façade, but the core struggle persists.
If Nigeria is to become the democracy its constitution promises, it must confront these failures. Security architecture must be professionalized, reformed, reoriented toward protection, not suppression. Rule-of-law institutions must be strengthened so that grievances find redress within courts, not on streets.
The leadership must take a leap of courage: treat protest not as threat, but as feedback. Allow citizens to voice frustration without the barrel of a gun. Engage, listen, compromise. That is how societies grow, how legitimacy accrues, how peace is preserved.
Finally, civil society, media, and the citizenry must refuse normalization of violence. Each episode of repression must be documented, challenged, and memorialized. Silence is complicity; forgetfulness is defeat.
