The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has stated that he could not direct the Department of State Service (DSS) to release Omoyele Sowore from custody.<\/p>\n
A terse statement Monday night by his Special Assistant on Media, Umar Gwandu, said such will amount to a unilateral decision as the case of the #RevolutionNow protests convener and his co-defendant, Olawale Bakare, was still in court.<\/p>\n
Sowore\u2019s lawyer, Femi Falana, had demanded that Malami take action on the continued incarceration of the duo.<\/p>\n
His call followed Malami\u2019s order to the DSS to hands-off the trial of the activist and hand over the case to his office.<\/p>\n
But Malami said the action doesn\u2019t mean he could free Sowore at will.<\/p>\n
Malami said: \u201cWhen parties submit their issues for determination to a court of law, they lack exclusivity of decision over such issues without recourse to the court.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe remain guided by the established tradition and will not take unilateral decision without recourse to the rule of law,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Sowore has remained in detention following his re-arrest by operatives of DSS at the Federal High Court in Abuja on December 6, 2019.<\/p>\n
The episode drew local and international criticisms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has stated that he could not direct the Department of State Service (DSS) to release Omoyele Sowore from custody. A terse statement Monday night by his Special Assistant on Media, Umar Gwandu, said such will amount to a unilateral decision as the case of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":1606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[119,102,924],"class_list":["post-19015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-dss","tag-falana","tag-omoyele-sowore"],"yoast_head":"\n