Sowore granted bail in sum of N20m

Omoyele Sowore, convener of the Revolution Now Movement, has been granted bail in the sum of N20 million.

A magistrate court sitting in Wuse Zone 2, Abuja, on Monday granted bail but Sowore said the conditions were too stringent.

He along with Peter Williams, Sanyaolu Juwon, Emmanuel Bulus and Damilare Adenola were arrested on New Year’s eve during a protest organised and led by him.

The police had arraigned the five persons last week Monday on three counts of conspiracy, unlawful assembly, and incitement.

Mabel Segun-Bello, the magistrate, had ordered that they be remanded at the Kuje correctional centre.

But last Tuesday, they were transferred to the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (FCIID) after Sowore reported that they were denied access to healthcare, food and water.

Counsel to the defendants, Marshal Abubakar, while moving the application for bail, asked the court to grant them clients “on self recognisance or in the alternative grant bail in the most liberal terms”.

The ruling which was scheduled for Friday was stalled owing to the failure of the police to produce the defendants in court.

On Monday, ruling on the bail application, the chief magistrate said the defendants did not resist arrest while being apprehended.

According to her, the defendants are entitled to bail as it is their fundamental right to liberty.

The second, third, fourth and fifth defendants were granted bail in liberal terms with a bond of one million each.

They are also to produce one surety in like sum who “must be resident in Abuja with an identifiable workplace and residential address”.

“The first defendant however, Omoyele Sowore is also admitted to bail in the sum of N20m and two sureties in like sum,” the magistrate ordered.

One of the sureties must be a civil servant not below grade level 12 in the federal civil service.

The magistrate said Sowore must report physically to the chief registrar of the FCT high court or any other person designated by the chief registrar every Monday and Friday morning until the end of the case.

She added that all defendants must not travel outside Abuja metropolis or outside the country pending determination of the case.

Sowore, in his reaction, said the bail conditions were too stringent.

He said the bail sum was too high for a civil servant, adding that no civil servant would want to risk their job for such bail.

Sowore, however, thanked his supporters for standing by him.