The publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, on Tuesday, refused to enter his defence in his ongoing his cyberbullying trial in which he was accused of falsely calling President Bola Tinubu a criminal.
Defence lawyer, Marshal Abubakar, informed Judge Mohammed Umar of the Federal High Court, Abuja, that Mr Sowore had personally written to the Chief Judge (CJ), John Tsoho, seeking the reassignment of the case to another judge of the court.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Sowore is being prosecuted by the State Security Service (SSS) on cybercrime charges for referring to the president as “a criminal” in social media posts on his X and Facebook.
On 8 May, the judge, Mr Umar, dismissed Mr Sowore’s no-case submission and upheld the argument by the prosecution lawyer, Akinlolu Kehinde, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), that a prima facie case had been established against him to warrant his being called upon to enter a defence.
Shortly after the ruling, Mr Sowore and his lawyer, Mr Abubakar, applied orally that the judge should withdraw from further handling the case on grounds of alleged bias.
