As regards the detention of Omoyele Sowore and all other persons arrested during the peaceful protest held on August 5, 2019, a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has ordered the Federal Government, the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Inspector General of police to explain why the Revolutionnow protesters should not be unconditionally released.
Afriupdate understands that the court also ordered the DSS and the IGP to appear before it on the next adjourned date of September 4, 2019.
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Justice Nicholas Oweibo ruled on an exparte application brought by a Lagos lawyer Olukoya Ogungbeje in a suit challenging the FG, DSS, IGP and the AGF.
It was gathered that Ogungbeje, who filed the suit on behalf of himself and others who participated in the #Revolutionnow protest, asked the court to also declare as unconstitutional and illegal, the police clampdown of the protesters and the arrest of Sowore by the DSS.
He also asked the court to make an order for the immediate and unconditional release of those arrested and detained.
But instead of ordering the release of those detained, justice Oweibo granted Ogungbeje leave to serve the DSS and the IGP so he could hear from them on the next adjourned date especially on why Sowore and others should not be immediately released.
The Federal High Court in Abuja had granted the DSS permission to detain the publisher of Sahara Reporters for 45 days.
The presiding judge, Justice Taiwo Taiwo, gave the ruling on an ex parte application filed by the DSS to keep Sowore for 90 days to investigate him over his call for revolution.
Applying for the detention order, the DSS anchored its application on the provision of section 27(1) of the Terrorism (Prevention) Amendment Act.
However, Femi Falana (SAN), lawyer to the convener of #RevolutionNow protests, said that he would file an application to challenge the detention order to detain his client for 45 days.
According to him, Sowore had envisaged the ruling and had instructed that it be challenged.
He said: “I saw him yesterday (Wednesday) when he had already envisaged that the order for his detention would be granted. So he had already given us the instruction to challenge it.”
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Speaking at an event organised by the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), Falana, who did not mention President Muhammadu Buhari’s name directly, also said that Sowore had briefed him from detention that in the case he would be charged, his first witness would be someone in government who, in 2011, also called for a revolution.
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