According to him, the ruling showed that Sowore and co-defendant, Olawale Bakare, were innocent of the trumped-up charges government had brought against them at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
National President of Revolutionary Lawyers' Forum, Tope Akinyode, has hailed the decision of a Federal High Court in Lagos, which slammed a N1m fine on the Nigerian Government for disrupting the #RevolutionNow protest of August 5, 2019.
Akinyode in a statement on Monday said that government opened up Nigeria to the highest level of disgrace when it cowardly arrested Convener of the #RevolutionNow Movement, Mr Omoyele Sowore, on August 3, 2019 for organising the protest.
According to him, the ruling showed that Sowore and co-defendant, Olawale Bakare, were innocent of the trumped-up charges government had brought against them at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
Akinyode said, “We commend Hon. Justice Maureen Onyetenu for her sound reasoning in awarding the sum of N1m and compulsory apology in three national dailies against the Federal Government for wickedly and disgracefully disrupting the RevolutionNow protest on August 5, 2019.
“The Federal Government had opened up Nigeria to the highest level of disgrace when it cowardly arrested Convener of the RevolutionNow Movement, Mr Omoyele Sowore on 3rd August, 2019 for imploring Nigerians to flood the street in protest against the maladministration of the President Muhammadu Buhari regime.
“We had painstakingly taken time to warn the government that the RevolutionNow Movement was entirely constitutional and that the ongoing trial of Sowore on trumped up charges was a big disgrace.
“However, just like the classical quotation that "those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad", the government ignored our call for reasoning.
“Now, we have been vindicated in our position by the judgment today wherein the judge held that the police disruption of the protest on 5th August, 2019 was “illegal, oppressive, undemocratic and unconstitutional”.
“Indeed, the ongoing sham trial of Sowore is absolutely illegal, oppressive, undemocratic and unconstitutional too.
“We hereby urge Hon Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu to follow the impressive reasoning of Justice Onyetenu and decisively quash the baseless charges against Sowore which has been lingering for a while now so that Sowore and his co-defendant would be set free to go about with their businesses without hindrance.”