Nigerian state security police on Friday re-arrested an opposition activist and former presidential candidate, a day after a court ordered him freed, his lawyer said.<\/p>\n
Omoyele Sowore and his co-defendant Olawale Bakare were freed on Thursday after months in detention over an alleged online call for rebellion against President Muhammadu Buhari.<\/p>\n
“Sowore has been re-arrested. He is being detained by the DSS (Department of State Service),” attorney Femi Falana told AFP, referring to the domestic intelligence agency.<\/p>\n
“The DSS had attempted to arrest him in court but were resisted by the people and to avoid violence, I personally drove him to their office,” he said.<\/p>\n
Falana said the security agents promised to release him after interrogation.<\/p>\n
“The DSS said he was needed for more information on his trial and promised to release him later in the day,” he said.<\/p>\n
A DSS official was not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n
Sowore, 48, ran unsuccessfully against Buhari in February elections. He has been one of the president’s fiercest critics.<\/p>\n
Sowore, who runs the news website Sahara Reporters which regularly reports on official graft, had called for nationwide protests against misrule in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
He was in court on Friday for his trial when the security agents tried to take him again, his lawyer said.<\/p>\n
Television footage of the scene showed Sowore being rough-handled as he struggled with the security operatives.<\/p>\n
Falana said it was “wrong for the DSS to arrest my client without any court order,” vowing to challenge his fresh detention.<\/p>\n
The pair had been released hours after a judge gave police 24 hours to free Sowore. He had been held since August by the DSS after urging protests under the online banner “#RevolutionNow”.<\/p>\n
In October, a high court in the capital Abuja ordered that Sowore and Bakare be released on conditional bail, but the authorities kept them locked up.<\/p>\n
They were accused of “treasonable felony”, “cyberstalking” the president and money laundering, among other charges.<\/p>\n
Local rights and transparency group Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) on Friday condemned Sowore’s re-arrest, describing it as “a mockery of justice and abuse of the judicial process.”<\/p>\n
It urged the authorities “to immediately and unconditionally release” the activist and “end the fragrant attack on the rule of law.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigerian state security police on Friday re-arrested an opposition activist and former presidential candidate, a day after a court ordered him freed, his lawyer said. Omoyele Sowore and his co-defendant Olawale Bakare were freed on Thursday after months in detention over an alleged online call for rebellion against President Muhammadu Buhari. “Sowore has been re-arrested. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":13672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[97,119,674],"class_list":["post-18554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-buhari","tag-dss","tag-sowore"],"yoast_head":"\n