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The Department of State Services has released the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the February 2019 general elections, Mr. Omoyele Sowore.
Sowore and his co-detainee, Adebayo Bakare, were freed on Thursday hours after Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Federal High Court in Abuja gave the DSS a 24-hour ultimatum to release the two men.
Their lead defence counsel, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), who confirmed the release was quoted as saying that they were released about 7pm on Thursday.
The Punch newspaper quoted him as saying that the agency had paid the sum of N100,000 awarded against it by Justice Ojukwu for making the court to adjourn till Friday for frivolous reasons on Thursday.
The two men, who are now being prosecuted by the Federal Government on charges of treasonable felony, were arrested in August over their call for ‘Revolution’ protest against what they described as “bad governance.”
But the had DSS continued to hold them in custody despite separate court orders ordering their release.
It came to a head on Thursday when the judge, who frowned at the conduct of the DSS, issued a fresh order directing the agency to release them within 24 hours.
Earlier in the day, a group of half-naked women from Sowore’s birthplace in Kiribo, Ese-Odo Local Government Area of Ondo State, had stormed the Federal High Court, Abuja, to protest the continued illegal detention of their son by the DSS.
Most of the women, numbering about 30, were decked in white wrappers and bra, but with no clothes covering the rest of the upper parts of their bodies.