At Last, DSS Bows To Law, Releases Sowore

The Department of State Services has released rights activist and presidential candidate of the African Action Congress in the February 2019 general elections, Mr. Omoyele Sowore.

His co-detainee, Adebayo Bakare, was also freed.

They were freed hours after Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Federal High Court in Abuja had given the DSS 24-hour ultimatum to release the two men.

Punch reports that their lead defence counsel, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), confirmed this development on Thursday night.

He said they were released about 7pm.

“They were released about 30 minutes ago. They were released to one of our lawyers,” he said.

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He also told our Correspondent that the agency had paid the sum of N100,000 awarded against it by Justice Ojukwu for making the court to adjourn till Friday for frivolous reasons on Thursday.

The two men, who are now being prosecuted by the Federal Government on charges of treasonable felony, were arrested in August over their call for ‘Revolution’ protest against what they described as “bad governance.”

But the DSS had continued to hold them in custody despite separate court orders ordering their release.

It came to a head on Thursday when the judge, who frowned at the conduct of the DSS, issued a fresh order directing the agency to release them within 24 hours.

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.

Most of the women, numbering about 30, were decked in white wrappers and bra, but with no clothes covering the rest of the upper parts of their bodies.

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PUNCH