FG halts treasonable felony trial against Sowore, Bakare

The Federal Government has informed a Federal High Court in Abuja of its willingness to discontinue the treasonable felony trial of human rights campaigner Omoyele Sowore and co-defendant, Olawale Bakare, otherwise called Mandate.

This was disclosed in a court filing by the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, sent to the court in Abuja Thursday.

The document read, “By virtue of the power conferred on me under Section 174(1)(c) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended, Section 107(1) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 and all other powers enabling me in that behalf, I Lateef Olasunkanmi Fagbemi, SAN, intend to discontinue charge No: FHC/ABJ/CR/235/2019.’’

This process marked an end to the trial that had lasted nearly five years.

Mr Sowore was in court on Wednesday for the resumption of the trial as stipulated by the court but the government’s prosecutor, A.Y. Tahir, said he had been newly assigned to the case and would need more time to catch up with the briefings.

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Mr Sowore was arrested in August 2019 for convening a nationwide protest tagged “RevolutionNow.” Over 35 government prosecutors had handled the case since the State Security Service led a team of 23 lawyers seeking to hand Mr Sowore a potential life jail in December of the same year. The case was also brought before at least three judges.

The preliminary months of the matter in 2019 saw Mr Sowore’s passport seized and initially barred from travelling outside the Federal Capital Territory and granting press interviews before the conditions of the bail were varied allowing him to travel to other parts of the country.

Chairman of the African Action Congress in Oyo State, Kayode Babayomi, said the “end of the sham trial was overdue.”

“We expect that the court would order the release of his passport so that Mr Sowore can go home to his family in New Jersey for the first time since he was abducted in 2019,” Mr Babayomi told TrackNews Media