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The Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday postponed the hearing of the case filed by the Nigeria Police Force against Omoyele Sowore and other organisers of the #FreeNnamdiKanuNow protest to November 5.
The adjournment was due to the absence of the presiding judge, Justice Mohammed Umar, who was said to be sitting at the Enugu division of the court.
The case, which appeared as item number 11 on Wednesday’s cause list, was therefore rescheduled to November 5 for the hearing of the motion on notice.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Justice Umar had earlier, on October 17, fixed October 20 for the respondents in the police’s ex parte motion to show cause why the interim order issued against the protesters should not be set aside.
However, the hearing did not take place because the protest went ahead on October 20, disrupting court activities at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
The judge had earlier granted an interim order requested by the police, restraining Sowore and others from staging protests calling for the release of Nnamdi Kanu in certain sensitive locations within Abuja.
Justice Umar prohibited the protesters from demonstrating around Aso Rock Villa, the National Assembly, the Force Headquarters, the Court of Appeal, Eagle Square, and Shehu Shagari Way pending the determination of the motion on notice.
He also issued an order for the “abridgement of time within which the respondents will respond to the application on notice to cause the ex parte order to be set aside on Monday, the 20th of October, 2025 at 9.00am,” before adjourning the matter to October 20 for hearing.
The order was made after the police counsel, Wisdom Madaki, moved an ex parte motion on behalf of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN) on October 17.
In the ex parte application, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2202/2025, the Police Force listed Sowore, Sahara Reporters Ltd, and Sahara Reporters’ Media Foundation as the 1st to 3rd respondents.
It also joined Take It Back Movement (TIB), the Transformation of Nigeria or Any Form of Organisation or Any Other Person(s) Acting on Either Express or Implied Instruction or Any Other Organisation or Group With Similar Intention, and Unknown Persons as the 4th and 5th respondents respectively.
In an affidavit supporting the motion, Bassey Ibithan, a police officer attached to the Directorate of Legal Services at the Force Headquarters in Abuja, stated that failure to grant the request could pose a threat to national security.
Sowore, who is the publisher of Sahara Reporters, had planned to organise a protest demanding the release of Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the banned Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
Sowore, who was also the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2019 and 2023 general elections, had mobilised for what he described as a peaceful protest against Kanu’s continued detention on October 20.
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