Opeyemi Sowore, wife of detained activist and Publisher of Saharareporters, Omoyele Sowore has said she and her two children have only been able to speak with him twice, by phone, since his arrest on August 3rd in Lagos.  

“The calls were heavily monitored,” Opeyemi Sowore told NorthJersey Record.

”Sowore has used the word revolution to promote democratic governance, including in the protest he was organizing in August, which called for education, security, infrastructure and fair wages, but the Nigerian government sees the term as negative” Opeyemi Sowore said.

She also called the charges against her husband “frivolous” and said they also stemmed from his criticism of the Nigerian president during a TV interview and movement of between $15,000 and $16,000 to a Nigerian bank to pay salaries of Sahara Reporters journalists working in Nigeria, she said. “This is basically a violation of his human rights,” Opeyemi Sowore said.    

Sowore and his wife live in Haworth, in Bergen county in New Jersey. According to Opeyemi, Sowore was in Nigeria on a business trip when he was arrested. She said on the day he was arrested she got a text message from him saying ‘I love you’. “It came out of nowhere,” Opeyemi Sowore said.

Within an hour, she started getting repeated calls from his cousin that her husband had been detained, she found out it was because he was helping organize what she called a peaceful protest for August 5th.