Sahara Reporters publisher and African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, has refused to pay bail for an offence he insists he did not commit. Meanwhile, police officers reportedly searched the Internet to determine the exact location of the alleged incident.
On Monday, Mr Sowore, accompanied by his lawyers Marshall Abubakar and Deji Adeyanju, honoured a police invitation for questioning regarding a video showing uniformed officers instructing his driver to stop on the road to the airport.
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The footage, recorded by Mr Sowore, captured officers stopping his vehicle and asking the driver to park. The activist alleged that the action was part of a wider pattern of police extortion targeting those heading to the airport.
Posting the video on X, Mr Sowore captioned it: “Operation Resist @PoliceNG extortion on Nigerian highways! #RevolutionNow”.
The post reportedly angered senior police officers, who accused Mr Sowore of attempting to incite unrest. This led to the invitation for questioning, which he attended with his legal representatives.
Sowore’s bail conditions
However, there are indications that the police intend to detain him, having already requested that he post bail. Mr Sowore rejected the demand, maintaining that he had committed no crime. The police asked him to provide a civil servant on Grade level 16 with an N100 million property as surety. Also, the human rights activist was asked to surrender his international passport.
“They’re on Google trying to find the location of the alleged crime,” Mr Sowore told Peoples Gazette on Monday afternoon. “I committed no crime and I am not going to accept any bail when I didn’t do anything wrong.”
He is demanding to be released without conditions, reiterating his innocence.
“I want an unconditional release,” he stated.
Adeyanju argued that, since the police were directly involved in the matter, they should have referred the case to another agency to ensure fairness.
Sowore, who is also the publisher of Sahara Reporters, stated that he would rather remain in detention than accept conditions that undermine his innocence.
“I have also advised the DIG that in accepting ‘bail’, I will not agree to conditions that compromise my innocence, dignity, and integrity. If such unreasonable conditions are imposed, I will choose to remain in detention until I am charged to court, even then I know that there is no crime defined or to be investigated it is just the impunity that has become the hallmark of the @PoliceNG hierarchy,” he wrote on X Monday afternoon.
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A fierce critic of former President Muhammadu Buhari’s government, Sowore was previously detained by the State Security Service for five months in 2019 over his role in organising a protest against the cost-of-living crisis.
The Buhari administration charged him with treason and seized his passport for five years, preventing him from travelling to the United States to see his family.
In February 2024, President Bola Tinubu’s government dropped all charges against Mr Sowore, though no compensation was offered.