Sowore, Bakare challenge FG’s fresh application, says transfer to prison contemptuous

The convener of #RevolutionNow protest and Sahara Reporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore, and his co-detainee, Adebayo Bakare, in a notice of preliminary objection filed before the court on Tuesday, challenged the federal government’s fresh application for their transfer from the custody of the Department of State Service (DSS) to prison.

They described the application filed on behalf of the Federal Government by the prosecuting counsel, Hassan Liman (SAN), as frivolous, vexatious, unarguable and contemptuous for being a contravention of the order directing the DSS to release them from custody.

According to them the fresh application filed before Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu, of the Federal High Court in Abuja, was meant to frustrate the court’s order for their release from DSS custody.

Arguing through their legal team, led by Femi Falana (SAN), they added that the application for “their transfer from the DSS custody to prison, showed that there was no genuine interest to prosecute them.”

The application read: “The application was filed by the Complainant/Applicant to frustrate the execution of the order of release of the 1st and 2nd defendants/objectors from the custody of the State Security Service made by this Honorable Court on November 6, 2019.

“There is no genuine intention to prosecute the 1st and 2nd defendants by the complainant/applicant, as the statement of witnesses this Honorable Court ordered to be availed the defence team is yet to be issued and served.

“The grounds upon which the complainant’s/applicant’s application is hinged are frivolous, vexatious, contemptuous, manifestly unarguable and unknown to law.”

Sowore and Bakare are being prosecuted by the Federal Government before the court, on charges bordering on treasonable felony, cybercrimes and money laundering instituted against them in the wake of their call for #RevolutionNow protests across the country.

It would be recalled that separate court orders had directed the release of Sowore and Bakare from DSS custody, after meeting the bail conditions imposed on them after their arraignment.