Human rights activist and SaharaReporters publisher Omoyele Sowore is set to appear again at the Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday as his trial continues over criminal charges filed by the Department of State Services (DSS) for labeling President Bola Tinubu a “criminal.”
The DSS named Sowore as well as X Corp. (owner of X, formerly Twitter) and Meta Platforms Inc. (parent company of Facebook) as defendants in a five-count charge registered at the court.
Filed on September 16, 2025, by M.B. Abubakar, Director of Public Prosecutions at the Federal Ministry of Justice, the charges allege cyberstalking, defamation, and publishing false information against President Tinubu. The allegations stem from Sowore’s posts on X and Facebook in which he referred to Tinubu as a “criminal.”
The DSS specifically cited posts made on August 25 and 26, 2025, criticizing President Tinubu’s statements during his official visit to Brazil, where the President claimed his administration had eliminated corruption. The agency described Sowore’s posts as “false, malicious, and inciting,” arguing that they could potentially cause public disorder.
Evidence presented by the prosecution includes screenshots of Sowore’s posts, letters sent to X and Meta requesting content removal, and Sowore’s public responses rejecting those takedown requests.
A former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Sowore has long been a vocal critic of successive Nigerian administrations, having previously faced multiple arrests, detentions, and trials for his activism and anti-corruption campaigns.
Sowore confirmed his court appearance on Tuesday via his X account, denouncing the prosecution as politically motivated and an attempt to suppress dissent.
“Today, I will attend yet another sham trial orchestrated by the lawless DSS over my truthful social media posts where I described Tinubu as a criminal,” he wrote.
He condemned the charges as a violation of his constitutional right to free speech, calling them fabricated. “For simply exercising free speech, the DSS has dragged me before a Federal High Court judge in Abuja on concocted criminal charges,” he stated.
Sowore further criticized the DSS, insisting that no credible security agency should pursue such a case. He also accused the Director-General of the DSS of using the trial as a display of “eye-service,” describing the agency as riddled with incompetence, hypocrisy, and intolerance.
“But the Director-General seems intent on ‘eye service,’ running an institution crippled by failure—one of the reasons Nigeria remains in crisis,” he wrote.
Despite the charges, Sowore vowed to continue his activism. “We will not back down. There are vulnerable people to rescue, and the struggle goes on,” he affirmed.
