Justice Ahmed Mohammed of a Federal High Court, Abuja, Monday, recused himself from hearing a motion challenging the continued detention of RevolutionNow convener, Omoyele Sowore.
Sowore is being detained by the Department of State Service (DSS) despite court orders granting him bail.
Sowore had on December 15 sued the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) and the Director General of the DSS, Yusuf Bichi over his re-arrest and continued detention.
He also filed an ex parte application seeking an order of the court to compel the DSS to immediately and unconditionally release him from detention.
On December 17, shortly after the suit was called, the trial judge, Justice Inyang Ekwo ordered service of court process on the defendants and adjourned to December 23 for hearing of the motion.
However, there was a new development on Monday December 23, when a new judge, Justice Mohammed took over the matter.
Sowore was re-arrested on December 6, within the premises of the Federal High Court, Abuja, by operatives of the DSS, a few hours after he regained freedom from a four- month detention.
However, when the matter came up on Monday, Justice Mohammed declined to entertain the motion on grounds of likelihood of bias.
According to the judge, he could not go on with the matter because Sowore’s media outfit, SaharaReporters had sometime in 2016 accused him of being a bribe taker.
Justice Mohammed held that irrespective of where justice would go at the end of the day, he would be accused of bias, adding that the best thing was for him to return the case file to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court for re-assignment to another judge.
He consequently recused himself from the suit.
Responding, Sowore’s lawyer, Chief Femi Falana, SAN, consented with the view of the judge to step aside from hearing the matter.
Sowore and Olawale Bakare are standing trial on a 16 count charge bordering on treasonable felony, money laundering amongst others.
They pleaded not guilty and were granted bail in the sum of N100m and N30m, respectively.
The DSS had initially refused to release them on bail even after they had met their bail application, until Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu issued a 24-hour order for their release.
However, Sowore was rearrested on December 6, shortly after he was released on bail by the DSS over a yet to be disclosed offence.
In a three-paragraph further affidavit in support of the motion ex parte, the applicant prayed the court for an order for the production of the applicant for an unconditional release in pursuant of the release order made by the court on November 6.
The application was predicated on the grounds that the applicant was arrested on August 2 without a warrant of arrest and was further detained from August 2 to 7, without an order of court thereby breaching his fundamental human rights.
The plaintiff further claimed that the respondents have failed or refused to obey the orders of Justices Taiwo Taiwo and Ijeoma Ojukwu both of the Federal High Court, Abuja, who ordered his release on bail.
