Sowore challenges detention order

Comrade Omoyele Sowore, on Friday applied to the Federal High Court in Abuja to set aside its order permitting the Department of State Services to detain him for 45 days. Sowore, the convener of #RevolutionNow protests, through his lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), contended, among others in the 19-ground application, that the order issued by the court breached his constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights.

The publisher of the online news medium, Sahara Reporters, added that the order of court amounted to “legalising the illegality” of his detention for about four days prior to the issuance of the court order on Thursday.
Filed along with his application on Friday was an affidavit of urgency seeking an urgent hearing of the suit on the grounds that it “is one of fundamental importance that affects salient fundamental rights of the applicant herein.”

Operatives of the DSS, on August 3, arrested Sowore over his call for revolution ahead of the #RevolutionNow protests which held in some parts of the country on Monday. Ruling on an ex parte application by the security agency to detain Sowore for 90 days to investigate him for treason-related allegations, the judge, Justice Taiwo Taiwo, on Thursday granted the agency permission to hold the activist for 45 days.

According to the judge, the 45-day period, starting from Thursday, lapses on September 21, the date he also fixed for the next hearing of the case. He, however, added that the order of detention for 45 days was subject to renewal for further days upon an application by the security agency, in the event that its investigation could not be concluded within the first 45 days.