{"id":72596,"date":"2025-08-09T07:18:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T07:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=72596"},"modified":"2025-08-09T07:20:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T07:20:54","slug":"police-defend-sowores-detention-as-protests-erupt-in-abujaa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/08\/09\/police-defend-sowores-detention-as-protests-erupt-in-abujaa\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Defend Sowore\u2019s Detention as Protests Erupt in Abuja"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Samuel Adeola and Anifowoshe Oladipupo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Commissioner of Police for the Special Intervention Squad, CP Abayomi Shogunle, has defended the continued detention of human rights activist and 2023 AAC presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, amid mounting protests demanding his release.<\/p>\n<p>Addressing protesters and journalists at the Force Headquarters in Abuja on Friday, Shogunle said Sowore was arrested after allegedly refusing to make a statement during police interrogation.<\/p>\n<p>Sowore had honoured an invitation by the IGP Monitoring Unit on Wednesday but was detained afterwards.<\/p>\n<p>According to Shogunle, there are two petitions against the activist; one alleging the forgery of a police document published online, and another on cyberbullying.<\/p>\n<p>He said both petitions were shown to Sowore in the presence of his lawyers, but he declined to speak on them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is your duty to provide the source of how you got the forged document. He refused to make a statement, and that is on record,\u201d Shogunle said, adding that while suspects have the right to remain silent, the police also have procedures to follow when that happens.<\/p>\n<p>He insisted the detention was in line with the law.<\/p>\n<p>Outside the Force Headquarters, protesters dressed in black and waving Nigerian flags chanted anti-government songs, accusing the police of intimidation and rights violations.<\/p>\n<p>They denied blocking any roads and claimed their protest was peaceful and lawful.<\/p>\n<p>Some demonstrators also accused an Assistant Commissioner of Police of using a dog to intimidate them, while others alleged that Sowore sustained a broken hand after being moved to court on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>His continued detention and alleged mistreatment have drawn widespread condemnation from rights groups and civil society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Samuel Adeola and Anifowoshe Oladipupo The Commissioner of Police for the Special Intervention Squad, CP Abayomi Shogunle, has defended the continued detention of human rights activist and 2023 AAC presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, amid mounting protests demanding his release. Addressing protesters and journalists at the Force Headquarters in Abuja on Friday, Shogunle said Sowore [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":72597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,182,172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-72596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuja-reports","category-defence-and-security","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72596"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72600,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72596\/revisions\/72600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}