FG charges Sowore with treason, accuses him of insulting Buhari

Sowore is charged along with Olawale Bakare, also known as Mandate.

48 days after Presidential Candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2019 election, Omoyele Sowore was arrested by men of the Department of State Service, the Federal Government has charged the activist with treason and money laundering.

The government in the suit dated September 19, and filed at the Federal High Court in Abuja also accused the publisher of Sahara Reporters of granting an interview that caused an insult on the person of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Sowore is charged along with Olawale Bakare, also known as Mandate.

According to Punch, the charges, which were signed on behalf of t‎he Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), by Aminu Alilu, a Chief State Counsel in the Department of Public Prosecutions of the Federation‎ were filed a day before the expiration of the detention order that permitted the Department of State Service to keep Sowore for 45 days.

In the charges, the government accused Sowore and Olawale of committing conspiracy to commit treasonable felony in breach of section 516 of the Criminal Code Act by allegedly 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”.

Sowore was also accused of committing treasonable felony in breach of section, 4(1) of the Criminal Code Act, by using the platform of Coalition for Revolution, in August 2019 to stage the #RevolutionNow protest allegedly aimed at removing the President.

Moreover, the Federal Government accused the publisher of cybercrime offences by “knowingly” sending “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 charges against Sowore also include money laundering offences in breach of section 15(1) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011.