Human rights activist and former presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, has said Nigeria was yet to attain true independence despite over six decades since its liberation from British colonial rule.
Speaking in a video released on Nigeria’s Independence Day, Sowore argued that what the country celebrates annually was not the independence of the Nigerian people but rather “the independence of the colonial masters.”
“Nigeria’s independence is what we are pursuing. The one they are celebrating is the independence of the colonial masters. Our own independence has not arrived yet, that is why annually we protest on Independence Day,” he declared.
Sowore, who has been a vocal critic of successive governments, lamented that Nigerians were still subjected to oppression and hardship under what he described as “new colonial masters and slave masters.”
“We are still looking for independence, we want to be free from new colonial masters and slave masters. We are living in apartheid,” he said.
The activist further questioned the state of governance in Nigeria, noting that a nation where citizens work without access to pensions or where dissenting voices are silenced cannot be considered free.
“Any country where people work and they cannot get pension is not an independent country, any country where people speak and they get clamped down or detained in prison is not independent. That is what the colonial masters did to us,” Sowore stressed.
Drawing a parallel between Nigeria’s past colonial laws and present-day clampdowns on free expression, Sowore likened cybercrime laws to the notorious sedition laws once used by colonial authorities to stifle opposition.
“The colonial masters called what they called cybercrime now the sedition law. If you speak against authorities, you go to prison, so we are still looking for independence,” Sowore added.
