•‘Why police filed two cases against me same day’
A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has ordered six banks to furnish the Inspector-General (IG) of Police with details of account documents and all transactions, including inflows and outflows, linked to Omoyele Sowore from January 2024 to date.
Justice Emeka Nwite gave the order after the IGP’s lawyer, Wisdom Madaki, moved an ex-parte motion to the effect.
The IG, in the motion, had told the court that Sowore, the publisher of Sahara Reporters, is being investigated on allegations bordering on terrorism financing, money laundering and fraudulent activities.
Justice Nwite, in a ruling, held that the application was meritorious, saying: “I have listened to the submission of the counsel to the applicant and I have also gone through the affidavit evidence.
“I am of the view and so hold that the application is meritorious.
“The prayer is hereby granted as prayed.”
The IGP, in the ex-parte motion marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1757/2025, had sued Sowore and Sahara Reporters Media Foundation as first and second defendants.
The IGP, in the five grounds of argument, said Sowore “is being investigated for terrorism financing, money laundering and fraudulent activities.”
The applicant said there was a need for the court to grant the relief sought for the purpose of investigation and that if the order was not granted, it would jeopardise the police investigation.
Also, in the affidavit attached to the motion, Bassey Ibrahim, a police officer in the Legal Section, Force CID, alleged that his office received an intelligence report that Sowore “is using the accounts for terrorism financing, money laundering and receives financial support from foreign partners for terrorism.”
Ibrahim averred that there was a need for the police to secure the order of the court to obtain the statements of the accounts to enable the office to carry out an investigation into the alleged fraudulent activities of the suspects.
Meanwhile, Sowore has revealed how the police filed two cases against him on the same day, time, and court in Abuja, but with different judges.
He revealed this in a statement, yesterday, in continuation of his face-off with the IGP, Olukayode Egbetokun.
The statement read in part: “If anything could be regarded as one of the most bizarre and byzantine judicial manipulations, it played out today at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
Before two vacation judges, I was confronted with the spectacle of two simultaneous cases, both filed against me by the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) under its Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, and both bordering on allegations of ‘cybercrime’.
“As I shared with those following my updates last week, these new cases stem directly from my illegal arrest and torture in a police cell on August 6, 2025. Upon my release, police prosecutors twice proposed that I ‘make peace’ with the IGP. They asked that I attend a meeting with Egbetokun himself.
“I refused. Not once, but every time. I rejected their offer on principle, because such a meeting would compromise my long-standing position that Kayode Egbetokun was illegally appointed as IGP, having already completed his service as a police officer according to civil service rules.
“Their response was swift and vindictive. They swore to ‘deal with me’. And today’s judicial ambush was their attempt to make good on that promise. But I was and remain ready for the consequences.
“It was a calculated manoeuvre. The cases were deliberately fixed for hearing at the same time and on the same day, coincidentally listed as number three on the cause list of two separate courts, one before Justice M.S. Liman, the other before Justice Emeka Nwite. The plan was transparent and calculated to overwhelm us, disorient us, and box us into a corridor of legal limbo.”
