FG charges Sowore to court for ‘insulting Buhari’

The federal government has charged Omoyele Sowore to court for “conspiracy to commit treason” and “insulting” President Muhammadu Buhari. 

In the suit dated September 19 and filed at the federal high court in Abuja, the government accused Sowore of granting an interview which purpose caused insult on the person of the president of the country.

Olawale Bakare is also listed with Sowore as a defendant.

Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2019 general lection, has been detained by the Department of State Services (DSS) since August.

The DSS had earlier accused him of threatening public peace with his planned #RevolutionNow protest.

Sowore and Bakare are accused of committing “conspiracy” to commit treasonable by “staging a revolution campaign on September 5, 2019 aimed at removing the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.

The government also accused Sowore of money laundering and cyberstalking.

“You knowingly sent messages by means of press interview granted on ‘Arise Television’ network which you knew to be false for the purpose of causing insult, enmity, hatred and ill-will on the person of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” the suit read.

According to the suit, Sowore in April 2019 “transferred by means of swift wire, the sum of $19,975 from his UBA account credited by City Bank, New York into Sahara Reporters Media Foundation GTB account with the aim of concealing or disguising the illicit origin of the funds”.

The suit also claimed that a similar transaction involving the sum of $16,975 also occurred in July 2019.

These funds transfer, the government said, is contrary to section 15 (1) of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act, 2011.

The planned #RevolutionNow protest, the government said, was aimed at removing the president during his term of office otherwise than by constitutional means.

“Conspiracy to commit treasonable felony, contrary to Section 516 of the criminal code act, cap. C38 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 and punishable under the same section of the act,” the suit further read.

The court had granted the DSS’s request to keep Sowore for 45 days, and an application to bail him was rejected.

On Wednesday, security operatives laid siege to the office of Sahara Reporters, a publication founded by Sowore and also the premises of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) where a pro-Sowore protest was scheduled to be held.