Sowore Begins Hunger Strike to Protest Continued Detention by DSS

Malik Yahya/

Convener of the #RevolutionNow Protest, Omoyele Sowore, has embarked on a hunger strike to protest his continued detention by the Department of State Services (DSS) despite meeting the terms of the bail granted him by the court.

Sowore and his co-defendant, Olawale Bakare, have been in detention for 98 days.

SaharaReporters, an online news medium owned by Sowore, quoted human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, as confirming the development to it today.

“Since yesterday (Thursday) he has refused to come down. He has refused to see anybody and this is in protest that his rights are being violated.

“He has not eaten because the DSS don’t feed him and he is rejecting food from the people who usually take food to him in detention. 

“Yesterday, he said he didn’t want to see anyone including the people who take food to him because there is a court order asking for him to be released, the second one, so he is protesting this,” the medium quoted Falana as saying.

The DSS has continued to hold Sowore, and Bakare, despite being served with court’s warrants for the release of the two men.

Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Federal High Court in Abuja, before whom both men are being prosecuted by the Federal Government on treasonable felony charges, had on Wednesday signed the warrants for their release from custody.

NewsmakersNG learnt that the warrants were received at the headquarters of the DSS in Abuja by an operative identified as Solomon. B.

Defence lawyer, Marshal Abubakar, said the warrants were served by a court bailiff on the security agency around 10am yesterday.

It was also learnt that the bailiff who served the warrants on the DSS had deposed to affidavits of service which had been transmitted to the court’s file as a way of keeping the judge posted on the development.

Sowore and Bakare were arrested and kept in custody following their call for a protest tagged #RevolutionNow.

The protest was perceived by the Federal Government as a move to overthrow the President Muhammadu Buhari government.

They were on September 30 arraigned on charges of treasonable felony before Justice Ojukwu, who on October 4 granted them bail on terms and conditions they could not meet.

Following an application by the defendants, the judge on October 21 reviewed the bail conditions which the defendants finally met

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