BREAKING: Sowore regains freedom after 124 days in detention

Omoyele Sowore, the convener of RevolutionNow Movement, who has been in detention since August 3, has finally been freed by the Department of State Services (DSS), TOPNAIJA.NG can confirm.

An authoritative source disclosed this to TopNaija and Sowore’s lawyer Marshall Abubakar, also affirmed the development. “He has been released. I am with him as we speak,” the source revealed over the phone, adding that Olawale Bakare, Sowore’s co-defendant, had also been set free too.

The federal government had come under intense pressure over the detention of the activists despite fulfilling the conditions of the bail granted to them.

On Wednesday, Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, had rated the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari as the worst in the history of the country in terms of disregard for the judiciary.

Soyinka had said this while commenting on the detention of Sowore and Bakare.

On Thursday when the DSS arraigned the duo at a federal high court in Abuja for the commencement of their trial on charges of “treasonable felony”, Ijeoma Ojukwu, the presiding judge, gave the DSS a 24-hour ultimatum to release them.

The judge said after she signed the warrants for the release of the defendants from custody, and same was served on the defendants, the DSS had no justifiable reason to continue to hold them in custody.

Earlier in the day, a group of half-naked women from Sowore’s birthplace in Kiribo, Ese-Odo Local Government Area of Ondo State, had stormed the Federal High Court, Abuja, to protest the continued illegal detention of their son by the DSS.

The prosecuting counsel, Hassan Liman (SAN), had insisted that the DSS had not obeyed the court order for their release, the DSS had no power to constitute itself into a parallel court.

The judge also awarded the cost of N100,000 against the prosecution to be paid to the defendants for foisting “frivolous adjournment” on the court. She ordered that the cost must be paid before the next hearing which is Friday.

Sowore is expected to appear in court on Friday for commencement of trial.