Every time Omoyele Sowore has been arrested in 2025 (five times so far), different sets of people have accused him of working for various organizations, trying to draw a pattern or a theory. Whether it is Nyesome Wike and Lere Olayinka of APC/PDP, David Hundeyin and his Goodluck Jonathan apologists, or the Obidient faction of the Peter Obi’s support group, one thing remains a constant in their laughable commentary; they don’t believe Sowore does not have a backing or funder somewhere on planet Earth.

Let us dig a little deeper into the life of Sowore. In 1989, 19-year-old Sowore was introduced to the struggle after encountering the likes of Femi Falana, SAN and the late Beko Ransome Kuti at the University of Lagos. His first protest participation was the Anti-SAP protest, opposing the Bretton Woods Institutions’ (IMF, World Bank) imposed policies of the military regime of Ibrahim Babangida.

Sowore will go on to lead many pro-democracy protests and anti-June 12 annulment protests as a student leader. He also led protests against cultism and protests against tuition hikes, which saw him expelled from school several times and nearly cost him his life several times. About a decade later, in 1998, he led students to protest at the Nigerian Universities Games Association, NUGA games.

In 1999, he participated in the anti-WTO protest against corporate globalization in New York. In recent history, he has participated in protests against Shell environmental degradation (2010), against fuel subsidy removal (2012), EndSARS (2017, 2020), RevolutionNow (2019), Buhari Must Go (2020), October 1st (2020), Pots and Pans hunger protest (2020), June 12 Protest Against Hunger (2022, 2024), and EndBadGovernance (2024).

Scars

At each of these protests, he has been beaten, tear-gassed, arrested, detained, and tortured.

His aged mother suffered a stroke upon hearing of his arrest in 2019 and is bedridden until today. His brother was murdered in cold blood in 2021. Wait, all this stress, for how much? A sane person may ask.

Successive military and now, civilian ones too!, have dealt with him. From the Babangida to Abacha juntas who jailed him, got him expelled, refused issuing him, his NYSC discharge certificate until date; to 2006, when Olusegun Obasanjo and Nasir El Rufa dragged him to Court for exposing Obasanjo’s third-term plan. In 2007, the administration of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan banned Sahara Reporters from operating in Nigeria. Muhammadu Buhari jailed and tortured him, and Bola Ahmed Tinubu has upped that ante.

From the brief history above, it is clear that Sowore has fought and is still fighting everyone they have accused him of working for/with globally and locally. But is it possible that he is still working for them while acting like he’s fighting them? Yes, but if he doesn’t have commensurate wealth to back up such operations, Sowore would be stupid. And the Omoyele Sowore that I know is not that stupid.

When you look at his net worth, with no exotic car, no property in Lagos or Abuja, the only house in New Jersey, USA, is a mortgage co-owned with his wife, Opeyemi Sowore. Nigeria’s dreaded secret police, the SSS (self-styled as DSS) as well as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC jointly ransacked all his accounts and couldn’t trace any reasonable amount to him. Nobody wants to believe that his only source of income is Sahara Reporters media.

Now that we are done with the local political folklore, what about being an asset of the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA? In the history of CIA assets and espionage agents, from Hunt Howard, Kim Philby to Allan Davis, Clair George David Henry, Jeffrey Castelli, none has a modus operandi similar to Sowore. The only revolutionary in CIA asset history was Rolando Cubela of Cuba, who, during the Cuban Revolution, was a member and even a military leader of the DR’s Escambray Mountain front under Fidel Castro. His role later, when he became a CIA asset, was to help in assassinating Castro – a mission he failed several times, leading to his incarceration. At least he had massive wealth to show for the betrayal until his death.

Conclusion

It is indeed clear that Sowore’s wealth and modus operandi does not look like anyone working for a global organization like the CIA or a local one like APC, while actively fighting them and being tortured by the same people.

I don’t blame average Nigerians like David Hundeyin, Salako, or BigMack, etc., who think otherwise. One needs a deep level of consciousness to believe that anyone can be fighting injustice for over three decades without getting tired, or, compromising when they grew up in a society that celebrates fake luxury, oppressors, and “former activists.”

To believe a breed like Omoyele Sowore exists, he might just be the last of the radicals and true revolutionaries – and, we must not misread him! We must protect him or, we will miss out!!

RevolutionNow