The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, on Friday informed a Federal High Court in Abuja that his legal team had withdrawn from representing him in the defamation case instituted against him by the Department of State Services (DSS).
Sowore, who is also a trained lawyer, attributed his predicament to a recent ruling of the court directing him to open his defence or risk having the defence case foreclosed.
At Friday’s proceedings before Justice Mohammed Garba Umar, Sowore personally argued an oral application seeking the judge’s recusal from the case.
He alleged that the court had displayed bias against him and expressed fears that he might not receive a fair hearing if the trial continued under the same judge.
According to Sowore, developments in the proceedings had raised concerns about impartiality, prompting his request that Justice Umar step aside from the matter.
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Counsel to the DSS, Akinlolu Kehinde, did not oppose the application for recusal. However, he objected to any prolonged adjournment for the delivery of a ruling on the request.
Justice Umar initially fixed June 8 for ruling on the application but later adjusted the date following Sowore’s plea. The court subsequently rescheduled the ruling to June 15, when the defendant may also be required to commence his defence if the application fails.
The development follows a ruling delivered by the court on June 4, in which Justice Umar declined an application by Sowore’s counsel, Marshall Abubakar, seeking an adjournment of further proceedings until after the court’s annual vacation in July.
In the same ruling, the judge ordered that hearings in the case should proceed on a day-to-day basis, beginning from June 5, and directed Sowore to open his defence.
Sowore is facing prosecution by the DSS over allegations that he made defamatory statements against President Bola Tinubu on his social media platforms, including X and Facebook. The charges stem from posts in which he allegedly referred to the President as “a criminal,” an allegation that forms the basis of the ongoing defamation proceedings.
The case has continued to attract public attention due to its implications for freedom of expression, political discourse and the use of social media in Nigeria’s democratic space.