Opinion
By Ambassador Lilian Onoh
DURING election season, like clockwork, Omoyele Sowore engineers a confrontation with the government to get himself locked up, thereby planting himself in the national and international spotlight in order to claim he is a persecuted activist. He makes sure that his offence is bad enough to be arrested for, but not grievous enough to get any serious jail time.
This diabolically deceptive, cynical tactic is one promoted by image strategists, who advice would-be profiteers and fame-seeking desperados that in order to establish their fake credentials, they have to mimic and merchandise the harrowing suffering of genuine activists across the world who are almost always jailed for fighting for a cause. These strategists actually engineer the confrontations with the law for their clients to get them into the spotlight. Their brushes with the law are always within the minimum bracket of offences for which they can be released on bail or sentenced to community service or other such nonsense. They then ensure massive media coverage with pre-arranged press releases to get maximum benefit from their charade.
Upcoming rappers do it to establish their street cred. Sports stars with mediocre talent do it to get attention and sponsorship. Even film stars with waning popularity do it to return to the public eye. In Nigeria, the latest group to borrow this strategy are the fake activists, colloquially called “cashtivists”.
The most notorious of these vagabonds and the biggest financial beneficiary of them all is Omoyele Sowore, whose biggest claim to infamy before pretending to be journalist and activist is for allegedly raping a UNILAG student, getting arrested, jumping bail and absconding to the USA where he presented his run-ins with the law as government persecution in order to claim asylum.
His antics of attacking the government with what he knows to be totally false, defamatory statements are not a mistake. They are part of a well-worn strategy to get himself arrested and thereby frame himself and his one-man party as a serious threat to the government and as a serious contender that the government is afraid of.
This heinous practice has already helped him deceive well meaning but gullible American foundations from whom he’s already extracted over $5 million under false pretences by his reverse 419 on their psyche. His so called investigating and exposition of corruption were nothing more than spoon-fed reports and documents from the same corrupt government officials targeting each other or those opposed to them.
Both he and his chairmwoman, Lakeisha Landrum Pierre, admitted to this corrupt practice in Federal Court in Texas, stating in their defence that they collected fabricated reports from Geoffrey Onyeama, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Gabriel Aduda, his Permanent Secretary, with which to smear me in a long running sponsored campaign to divert attention from the multiple reports I filed about the monumental corruption and global money laundering scam they were operating within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the Buhari years. That counts as corruption. It is neither investigative nor in line with journalistic ethics. By his own admission in court, Sowore is corrupt and is neither an anti-corruption activist nor an investigative journalist but part and parcel of the corrupt establishment he pretends to be opposed to.
His targeted attacks against the rich and famous were mostly invented stories designed to get their attention and patronage; as well as get viewership with clickbait salacious headlines to collect advertising revenue. We cannot soon forget the viral fake news about Governor Willie Obiano’s death or the fictitious story of the Sharia trial of a non-existent Fatima Muhammed for converting to Christianity and too many others to mention.
His latest outburst in which he called President Tinubu “a criminal” followed the failure of Tinubu to appoint him as Minister or Spokesman during the November 2024 cabinet reshuffle. The rumour mill was rife with his impending elevation to Minister or Spokesman and not getting appointed was extremely humiliating for him.
His retaliatory outburst was to engineer yet another strategic run-in with the law to fling himself into the spotlight and regain his lost credibility.
Fortuitously, it coincided with yet another election cycle. Sowore, who has been sued multiple times for defamation, knew exactly what he was doing and intended to defame the President in a manner that left the DSS no option but to arrest him.
He had done the same to Buhari when Buhari failed to give him a position after the vile smear campaign he had run against Goodluck Jonathan. That smear campaign had been coordinated with Sola Enikanolaiye, Tinubu’s newly appointed Deputy Foreign Minister. The report of their collusion, written by the second highest ranking intelligence officer at the time, is in the office of the NSA and the NIA.
Buhari, a thin-skinned, vengeful personality, did not practice Jonathan’s restraint and decided to show his dog who owned it. Sowore was promptly arrested and given a small dose of koboko to remind him who was his Master. His days in detention in the horrendous mosquito, cockroach and rat infested cells stinking of urine and faeces reset his head slightly but clearly not enough.
Unfortunately, his arrest and trial gave him the gravitas he desperately needed to re-establish his “persecuted activist” persona and he milked it for all it was worth, getting many foreign foundations, including the Kennedy Foundation, Clooney Foundation and Amnesty International to include him in their list of persecuted journalists to advocate for. Even his town mayor in Englewood, New Jersey and his Federal Legislator also advocated for his release without understanding that it was all a charade.
Like Buhari, Tinubu fell for the poisoned chalice that Goodluck Jonathan had avoided. Jonathan and Dame Patience had swallowed all sorts of vileness in the smear campaign the APC waged against them whilst conversely, Buhari and Tinubu, the APC kingpins and Sowore’s masters, have been unable to ignore his baiting. How ironic.
Unlike the Buhari case, Sowore made sure this offence was easily bailable but unserious enough for him to claim persecution after being arrested. He hadn’t expected to spend so many days in his old digs at Kuje Prisons with his old friends, Mosquito, Rat and Cockroach in the stinking sweltering heat in cells stinking of human excrement before being bailed.
All his current gimmicks in court, complaining about the judge being biased et cetera are nothing more than the necessary steps in the playbook of establishing himself as a persecuted activist. Nobody has thought to ask what exactly he stands for. He has never held a real job in his life and has not even articulated the administration policy for an Akara Station let alone for executive office.
Like Buhari before him, Tinubu is simply flogging his errant dog that forgot who was its Master. Because of the deep links between them all, the flogging will be minimal. In fact, during the Buhari saga, Buhari even left him free to roam around, form a one-man political party that has never presented a manifesto to the country, pretend to run for President and “campaign” with a coterie of half naked men in a river whilst ostensibly being tried for treason.
Anyone with any knowledge knows that treason is such a heinous crime that in many countries including Nigeria, it still carries a mandatory death sentence or at the very least, life imprisonment. It is unheard of that a person charged with treason is granted bail but Sowore was free to roam around Nigeria in an puerile charade and was ultimately set free once Buhari got tired of flogging him just before leaving office.
The only people deceived by the charade were those who did not know that it was a game of smoke and mirrors.
After Buhari released him, he returned to America ostensibly to reunite with the family he claimed he missed but conversely, couldn’t even stand staying with them for more than a couple of months before scampering back to the same Nigeria he claimed to have been persecuted in. He will draw this criminal trial out as long as possible, with deliberately provocative antics from himself and his legal team with the hope that ultimately, some overseas NGOs and foundations will include him in their list of persecuted persons to advocate for as well as appear to be a serious contender for president.
Like most dog owners, Tinubu knows that his dog will still be useful in the future, so the whipping will not be too severe. Most likely, Sowore’s will be sentenced to time already served.
But I cannot deny that watching the discipline inflicted on the errant dog, no matter how fleeting, it extremely satisfying. Even if he’s acquitted, I personally, am already satisfied knowing that he spent even one night, let alone nine whole nights in a mosquito, cockroach and rat infested cell stinking of human excrement in triple digit stifling heat inside Kuje prisons.
His APC paymasters know him too well to give him any real power and will perpetually keep their attack dog on a leash that is long enough for it to wag its tail but short enough to drag it back when it forgets who owns it and koboko it just enough to remind it to stop its mad barking and come to heel.
The purpose of this article is a hope that people’s eyes open and they’re no longer deceived by the cynical games of this fake activist playing his self serving mind games with their sympathy.
A.I
July 23, 2026
Tags: Ambassador Lilian Onoh Omoyele Sowore