The well-financed ploy to frustrate and silence Sowore, publisher of Sahara Reporters, only reveals how much he matters in fighting those on the other side of the political divide.

You may not agree with every of his medium’s coverage of our politics and politicians, but you can’t deny its big role in our democracy, and in keeping its beneficiaries on their toes.

Sowore is an impressively courageous Nigerian whose longstanding activism is only a testimony to his serial refusal to have his conscience packed in the Ghana-Must-Go bags of those afraid of his presence.

It’s sad that our judiciary is also in the midsts of this scandalous bid to frustrate him, and sadder we have bitter partisans jubilating that their principals’ bogeyman is under fire, even referencing fake bank records to pursue this agenda.

I can give you a reason to conclude I can vouch for Sowore, as I have even without informing him. A Minister in the last dispensation, having had enough of Sowore’s fire, contacted me to communicate his deal to his tormentor: a ceasefire. I didn’t get what he meant until his aide called the next day to explain that the principal intended to “settle” Sowore, with money the size you only read about in newspapers.

I was polite in telling the aide my position, that I thought they were prepared to share their own side of the story, which, even if not carried by SR, could have been, and easily, by other media platforms with equally large following.

This experience proves why we must stand with him, his rattling of the political establishment in ways they may never admit, even though he’s strong enough to do so himself as he had these past years. Especially in a political space with only a few of his ilk, where strong voices of yesterday are now aides, hirelings and consultants to the very politicians they once harshly ridiculed.

As for the Saraki camp whose principal I even defended when the verdict of the CCT trial favoured them, citing that the judiciary responds to evidence not fact, you really need to calm down. So also Jonathan’s, and PDP’s, foot-soldiers yet to overcome the shock of April 2015. You can only be afraid of Sahara Reporters when you’ve something to hide, otherwise this is an entirely harmless venture.