Lift Movement Restrictions On Sowore, Group Tells FG

The Take It Back Movement has criticized the movement restrictions imposed by a Federal High Court on Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress since 2019.

The group in a statement issued on Saturday by its global director of media and communications, Chidi Nwanyanwu, criticized Sowore’s lack of freedom to travel outside of Nigeria as unfair treatment as the 2023 elections drew nearer.

Recall that Sowore was detained at the Department of State Services facility in Abuja after being arrested in August 2019 for organizing the #RevolutionNow protest. He was then charged with treasonable felony among other offenses before being freed on December 24, 2019.

According to the group, the 2019 protest, which later took place across the nation, was intended to call for the government’s intervention in matters pertaining to the economy, security, workers’ wages, education, and health because they have an impact on the majority of people.

Sowore was then placed under city arrest and was not permitted to leave the Federal Capital Territory until the mobility ban was removed by an Abuja court of appeal on April 13, 2022.

Also Read: Sowore: Police No Longer Perform Their Duties, All They Do Is Protect VIPs

However, because his passport was taken, he is still prohibited from leaving the country by a court order.

Decrying the scenario, the TIB Movement said, “Sowore is the only presidential candidate in the forthcoming general election in Nigeria whose freedom of movement is being restricted by an unjust court order. This restriction placed on his freedom of movement has, by consequence, given his opponents in the race, an unfair advantage over him.

“While other candidates aren’t hindered from campaigning to Nigerians living at home and in the diaspora, Sowore of the AAC has been restricted to Nigeria by an unjust court order.”

“In flagrant disregard for two different court orders, Mr. Sowore was subsequently held in the DSS custody for five months. 33 months after his release from the DSS custody, the Buhari’s APC regime has totally abandoned the case in court.

“With the inability of the regime to prove any of its trumped up charges in court, it is now evident that President Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives Congress-led government is simply using the court as a tool for the suppression of Mr. Sowore’s movement,” the group claimed.

https://punchng.com/2023-lift-restrictions-on-sowore-group-tells-fg/