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CACOL CONDEMNS THE KILLING OF OLAJIDE SOWORE: DEMANDS JUSTICE

The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, has
condemned the recent assassination of Mr. Olajide Sowore. Olajide is a
younger brother of Omoyele Sowore, Chair of the African Action
Congress (AAC) and former presidential aspirant.
In a release issued by CACOL’s Director of Administration and
Programmes, Tola Oresanwo on behalf of its Chairman, Mr. Debo
Adeniran, he noted, “We received the news of the senseless
assassination of Olajide Sowore with great shock and angst. Olajide
was shot on his way from Igbinedion University in Edo State, where he
was studying Pharmacy”.

“It is regrettable that incessant and flagrant killings, kidnapping
and abductions of hapless Nigerians have been the other of the day and
one of the greatest threat to the right to life in Nigeria. The
stunning inability of the authorities to end them and bring suspected
perpetrators to justice have been and continues to serve as an impetus
for the perpetrators of these heinous crimes to continue their illicit
enterprise”.

“We at CACOL commiserate with the entire family of Olajide Sowore. We
stand in empathy with them and pray they find the necessary fortitude
to bear this irreparable loss. We condemn in the strongest term the
senseless killings that dotted the various parts of the country
thereby reducing human life that is supposed to be sacred to a very
cheap commodity. Like every right thinking Nigerians, we are still
searching for answers and trying to understand why and how this
happened and what caused it to reach this point”.

The CACOL Head adds “We call on our security agencies to carry out an
independent investigation and prosecution of all who might have a hand
in this dastardly act. We also use this medium to once again voice out
our disappointment on the perennial state of insecurity in the
country. This year, Nigeria as a country has lost more lives to
kidnapping and banditry than to road accidents. The government at all
levels must rise to the occasion by protecting the lives and
properties of every citizen which is the primary responsibility of any
creditworthy government”.

Mr. Adeniran concluded by saying “We have said it before and we will
say it again that if the government is finding it difficult to win
this self-fabricated war, then the help of external forces should be
sought. We cannot continue to read and hear about the gruesome murder
of innocent souls in different parts of the country, we cannot
continue to live in perpetual fear while at home or traveling on our
roads and we cannot as a country continue to slide back or retrogress
into the Hobbesian State of Nature where human life was “solitary,
poor, nasty, brutish and short.” It’s Olajide Sowore today, we don’t
know who it will be tomorrow. This nuttiness must stop and the right
time to stop it, is now”.

Tola Oresanwo
Director, Administration and Programmes, CACOL.
08141121208