An anti-President Muhammadu Buhari activist, Adeyeye Olorunfemi, walked out of a Channels Television programme on Monday, after refusing to remove his #BuhariMustGo T-shirt.
Olorunfemi stated that he chose to walk out of the studio rather than continue with the interview because doing that was tantamount to compromising on his belief.
He noted that he was offered a jacket to wear, to cover the #BuhariMustGo inscription on his T-shirt but he refused as it was “too absurd” for him.
The activist wrote, ”Here is my reaction to those who opined that I should have gone ahead with the interview this morning, instead of walking out in protest.
”It appears many don’t understand how oppression works. Sometimes, it comes in subtle forms- in ways that do not really hurt.
“There is no small oppression. So, to say I should have gone ahead with the interview without my #BuhariMustGo shirt means that I should allow my rights to freedom of expression to be trampled on, just ‘slightly’.
“I should have submitted myself to censorship and that I should have compromised the stance of the movement, right before the other person who was brought to defend how protesters were attacked during the #June12Protest. Never!
“When the Producer offered me a jacket to wear, so as to cover the #BuhariMustGo inscription, it was like initiating me to some identity crisis cult. It sounded too absurd.
”The civil rights movement in America has a history and the ‘small’ defiant role of Rosa Parks cannot be discarded. In fact, it birthed the whole resistance against segregation.
”Should we say it wouldn’t have mattered if Rosa Parks had allowed the white man sitting in the bus? Is it not ‘small standing she will just stand’? She would get to her destination sitting or standing, right? Is that not what you are saying? But what you need to know is that she would have postponed the campaign for freedom with such a ‘slight acceptance’ of oppression.
”The right for blacks to sit in a bus at that time was not recognised anyway, but it was fought for, due to Rosa Parks’ intolerable attitude towards ‘small oppression’. So if it’s written in any code, known or unknown, that it is unethical to go on TV with insignia perceived to be anti-government, let the fight to make it right begin.
”No matter how you package poison, it is still poison. It does not matter how you hide oppression in rules, regulations, ‘ethics’, conduct, flowery words, in your own docility, some of us can fish it out and we would never bow to it.
”It’s a big shame on the drowning Buhari regime that all institutions that should promote and defend rights have been subdued, owing to the dictatorship of the regime. It’s almost time up for the regime. We shall overcome. Victory is near.”