The African Action Congress, AAC, has rejected the reported suspension of the case against its 2027 presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, by the Department of State Services, DSS.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Rex Elanu, on Sunday, the AAC asked the DSS to immediately discontinue the prosecution of Sowore.
The party’s demand followed reports that the secret police had suspended its prosecution of Sowore until after the 2027 presidential election.
Recall that the DSS ordered its private counsel, Akinolu Kehinde, SAN, to take steps to suspend the alleged cyberbullying case instituted against Sowore until after the 2027 presidential election.
The development came against the backdrop of a meeting between the Director-General of the DSS, Tosin Ajayi, the senior lawyer and top officials of the agency’s legal directorate.
The AAC, however, said it did not consider the reported suspension of the case sufficient.
According to the opposition party, Nigerian criminal procedure does not provide for the indefinite suspension of a criminal trial.
“The African Action Congress, AAC, has taken note of the reported decision by the Department of State Services, DSS, to suspend its prosecution of our Presidential Candidate, Comrade Omoyele Sowore, until after the 2027 presidential election.
“We do not consider the purported suspension of this needless case to be good news. In fact, there is no provision known to us in Nigerian criminal procedure that empowers a prosecutor simply to ‘suspend’ a criminal trial and leave it hanging over an accused person indefinitely. The proper course is to discontinue the prosecution.
“The AAC understands this latest development as a belated acknowledgement that the prosecution has become an embarrassing political burden for the DSS and the administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” the statement said.