Omoyele Sowore is the publisher of New York-based Sahara Reporters, known for its hard-hitting reporting that is keeping Nigeria’s government officias, individuals and corporations on their toes. Recently, Mr. Sowore suddenly walked into our newsroom in Abuja. Our reporters sat down with him for an interview during which he spoke about his work and the political cum economic situation in his country.

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PT: We are glad to have you here, we will just be asking you a few questions. Now just tell us briefly how Sahara Reporters operate?

Sowore: Well, I started off first as a news website about 7 years ago basically collecting information from citizens, processing them and publishing them and distributing them through our media platforms across the globe. In the last three years, it has escalated and upgraded to become a complete multimedia outlet that has an online TV and now an online radio platform and of course the important thing to mention is that it is surrounded by Internet users. PT:


Now, 7 years down the line, will you say you have achieved the original vision. How far have you come?

Sowore: To be fair to myself and everybody who has worked with me on this platform, in my estimation I have far exceeded my expectations of these platforms. I just wanted to set up a website that I could use in communicating with Nigerians, Africans and the rest of the world about happenings in sub-saharan Africa and doing so from the safety of the United States of America. I was expecting on an average, on a daily basis, of 200 or 300 people reading us and feeding back to us in giving informations but after 7 years, it’s gone way beyond that expectation. But in terms of the fulfilment of the mission, yes the site has covered a good distance but I think there’s still a few more to be done.

PT: You publish very damning reports, how are you able to ensure your safety and that of your colleagues?


Sowore: Our first mission is to make information available to people in a way they can use as they want. That mission has been fulfilled. The second aspect of our mission is to speak truth to power. And the third aspect of it, in some cases and in most cases, is to damn the consequences for as long as the people who need to benefit from it get it, they can use it. They can take it to run and that can help them redefine their power because in a lot of ways I think for a lot of people, I think the kind of information we provide and the way we provide them is their only way of fighting back the myriad of problems they are confronted with by government. The last part of your question is about safety. Our mission is also to help ensure that citizens can turn the trajectory of fear against oppression, that people should no longer be afraid of people who are doing evil or who are stealing their commonwealth, people who are robbing them, people who are denying them their fundamental future, they should be the ones that should be afraid and that would mean by saying we are turning around the trajectory of fear. As for how we feel safe or unsafe, I think somebody has to do what we do and when you do it, it’s not hard to understand that they come with consequences. It’s a very dangerous job as you know. All over the world, the business of telling the truth always come with consequences and a lot of safety issues but what we’ve also not done is to put the safety pin on ourselves so we do whatever we can to stay safe. But our primary or major concern is not safety, it is the delivery of our mission.


PT: How did you just walk into Premium Times? We were in shock! How did you just get here without being arrested?

Sowore: First and foremost, I’m not a criminal and I’ve said that many times. I navigate my way through the country as much as I can so I travel as much as its permissible to help me get to where I need to get to. I won’t disclose the rest of how I got here but I’m here and that’s the most importan thing and I can pretty much go anywhere I want. I take my freedom very seriously, especially the freedom of movement.


PT: That leads us to the next question. Do you consider yourself a free Nigerian in Nigeria?

Sowore: No! And I don’t think that there are Nigerians in the majority who live in Nigeria who feel free. Part of the reasons why I take the risk that I take, if you want to call it a risk, is to share in the pain, in the difficulty, in the bondage that you can be in a country where you want and love to be but not free to. I’m not the only one who is not free in Nigeria, a lot of Nigerians are not free. As I’m speaking to you today, more than 2oo females who undertook secondary education in Borno state have been held hostage by a non-state actor like Boko Haram — just a ragtag group of militants. Those ones are not free, their parents are not free. There is a sense of siege even where you are today so freedom is relative and I’m saying that nobody can claim to be free in this country for as long as this country is in bondage and is being run as an open prison.


PT: What do you think should be done? What does Nigeria and its people need to do to make the majority of its citizens to be free?

Sowore: They have to decide to be free and that has to be psychological. I am psychologically free but I’m not physically free because I cannot move as freely as I should. And then they have to decide collectively to be physically free but that’s where there’s a lot of work because people have to take away the shackles of fear. They have to stop being afraid of those in power, they have to confront them and demand that they leave so they can be free especially those who have been holding back their freedom. And talking about freedom, you are talking about a wide range of freedom. It’s not just the freedom to move but the freedom to worship, the freedom to go to school, the freedom to give and have opportunity, the freedom to hope in a country of one’s birth.


PT: You have been very critical of successive administrations. What’s your impression of the Goodluck Jonathan administration?

Sowore: In an order of successive administrations in my lifetime I think this would be the worst in terms of delivery of services, in terms of organisation, in terms of even the style of governance, in terms of transparency, in terms of economic management and of course in terms of security. So this is the worst government in my lifetime that I have seen. You would say maybe Abacha was worse but you can understand Abacha was a military dictator. Nobody voted for him. He just hijacked power and he did whatever he wanted with it. But even within that framework as you can see, the Abacha regime is actually better than the Jonathan regime and I’m sorry to say this because you could almost feel that this country was more secure during those days. The value of the naira under Abacha’s regime was higher than the value of the naira under Jonathan regime, in fact it’s double that rate now. There were perhaps even better roads, in some cases better schools, in some cases better opportunities.


PT: So you are saying even within the framework of the Abacha regime…

SoworeCuts in) By the time you look at the entire corruption that Abacha perpetrated in his five years in power I guess, we are looking at 10billion dollars. Jonathan’s people stole at least 20 billion in less than 3 years from just sales of crude oil alone. If you add that to what the oil marketers or importers stole, which was 6.8 billion dollars, so you are looking already at 28 billion dollars stolen under Jonathan’s regime which is three times more than what Abacha stole during his regime. I’m not making this comparison saying that Nigerians deserve any of these leaders from Babangida to Abacha and the rest of them. I condemned successive administrations but it’s important to state that in clarifying my position as to which government is worse. This is my own statistical definition of how bad things have gone.


PT: But this government is building the airport road in Abuja. Did you not pass through the airport road? They also say they are creating jobs. Will you ever say anything good about the Jonathan registration?

Sowore: There is a difference between what the government says its doing and what we know the government is doing. For example, they claim to have created 1.5 million jobs and we have been asking for the last two months for them to provide us the sector of the economy or society where those jobs were created and nobody can give us answers. If the U.S says they have 240,000 jobs, they can tell you how many of them were from the hospitality business, academics, road construction. All of the sectors that we count, nobody can provide those sectors for you. The airport road you are talking about was awarded under Yar’adua so it’s not Jonathan that awarded the airport road that you are talking about. It’s possible that he attempted to construct such roads but none of those roads I see today exist to my understanding. They said a few months ago that they had turned around the power sector by privatising the power sector. As we speak today, you and I know that they have only invested more money in buying more darkness for the Nigerian people.

subtlemee:
GEJ will be laughing in Swahili now

Racoon:
Karma just dishing it out red red hot.Be careful what you do because whatsoever goes around not only comes around but also stays around.

ogb5:
Under Jonathan he had freedom of speech and freedom after speech.

Now he does not have freedom of speech, talk less of freedom after speech

fucking Ayaya:
.

jayfolarin:
GEJ and his gang of thieves were an absolute disaster. There was freedom of speech yes, but there was more freedom to STEAL especially at the top. There were gonn run Nigeria finances down the gutter had they not been kicked out and I have NO REGRETS being a part of that process. Sowore was right!!!!!!!

Gej's disastrous performance in office pushed Nigerians to Buhari whose propaganda machine convinced the majority that he was now a reformed Democrat. We were wrong and we admit it now. To err is human.

You cant fault sowore's stance against GEJ. The same way he went against GEJ is the same way he went against abacha, babangida, and now buhari. He is persistently been on the side of the truth and constantly fought the political class for the masses. I am yet to see anyone with any concrete proof of corruption against the guy. Not even Gej's houseboy, con-artist Pastor Reno was able to provide any proof of corruption against sowore

Tomide007:

Who was worse than Jonathan in 2014.....and who's worse than buhari in 2019....

Danzakidakura:
GEJ was a good man who carry every section of the country along in development and that hausa and yoruba dont like.anybody that will carry south and east along will be tagged bad government

Mightyhaiz:
Lol..cut this guy some slacks mehn. It will always be human to err. Freesowore#

JubrinElSudan:
lol. Na so your mates dey do hashstag?

fuckingAyaya:
.