Dr. Ayo Sogunro may not be known to the hoi polloi or the man on the street. However, he is well known among the remnants of the intelligentsia among the Nigerian youths which constitutes his fan base. He is a lawyer, human rights activist, writer – he ran a popular column in Punch Newspapers – the country’s most widely read in the dying traditional media called Pontifical Papers, he has written some satiric books which if he was in a decent clime would have given him the enormous financial clout of an Alexander Pope and he is now an academic.
He made the transition to the academia when he relocated to South Africa some years ago for a second Masters Degree in human rights law and followed it up with a Doctorate and a Post Doctorate in the same branch of law.
He was recently in the country to attend a human rights conference when he reached out to a married female friend of his who came to visit him in his hotel room.
The unexpected then happened as the door violently flung open and the police ordered his arrest and he was forced to sleep in a cell away from the comfort of his bed.
This is totally reprehensible. What crime did the young man commit? Why personally on religious grounds I do not subscribe to the idea of being in a room alone with a married woman, what crime has he really committed? Does Nigeria now run a theocracy? Doesn’t the 1999 Constitution say clearly that she is a secular state so why create this atmosphere of needless tension?
It is clear that the Nigerian Police haven’t learned much from the ill-fated end sars. The practice of just about anyone paying them a piddling and their doing the bidding even in civil jurisdictional matters is highly unfortunate, to say the least.
I urge Ayo to sue the cops and for the men in black to tender him a public apology. For how long we witness the tyranny of the police who harass, extort, and lord over most civilians simply because they possess a gun that was purchased with taxpayers’ funds?
Enough of this disgusting impunity!
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