Sowore Arrives In Court With His Bags As DSS Arraigns Him For Calling President Tinubu A “Criminal”

Human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore, will again appear at the Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday (today) for a continued trial following criminal charges filed against him by the Department of State Services (DSS) for calling President Bola Tinubu a “criminal”.

BrandNewsDay reports that the DSS listed Sowore, alongside X Corp. (owners of X, formerly Twitter) and Meta Platforms Inc. (parent company of Facebook), as defendants in a five-count charge entered at the court’s registry.

The charges, filed on September 16, 2025, by M.B. Abubakar, Director of Public Prosecutions at the Federal Ministry of Justice, accused Sowore of cyberstalking, defamation, and publishing false information against President Tinubu after describing him as a “criminal” in posts on X and Facebook.

The DSS cited Sowore’s August 25 and August 26, 2025, posts, in which he slammed Tinubu’s comments during his official visit to Brazil, where the President boasted that his administration had gotten rid of corruption.

The security agency claims the posts were “false, malicious, and inciting,” arguing that they were capable of causing public disorder.

Exhibits listed by the prosecution include screenshots of Sowore’s posts, official letters written to X and Meta requesting deletion of the content, and Sowore’s public responses rejecting the takedown requests.

Sowore, a former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), has long been a fierce critic of successive Nigerian governments. He has previously faced multiple arrests, detentions, and trials over his activism and anti-corruption advocacy.

The activist confirmed his scheduled court appearance in a post on his X (formerly Twitter) account on Tuesday, describing his ongoing prosecution as a politically motivated attempt to silence dissent.

“Once again today, I will be attending a sham trial orchestrated by the lawless DSS over my truthful expression on social media, in which I described Tinubu as a criminal,” Sowore wrote.

He lamented that he is being prosecuted merely for exercising his constitutional right to free speech, alleging that the charges before the Federal High Court in Abuja were fabricated.

“For exercising free speech, the DSS has dragged me before a Federal High Court judge in Abuja on fabricated criminal charges,” he said.

The activist further criticised the secret police, arguing that no credible institution should entertain such a case.

“Any serious or legitimate security agency should have never contemplated this type of case,” he stated.

Sowore also accused the Director-General of the DSS of using the case as an act of ‘eye-service’, describing the agency as one plagued by systemic failure.

“But the Director-General of the DSS appears determined to engage in ‘eye service,’ presiding over an institution crippled by incompetence, hypocrisy, and intolerance, one of the many reasons Nigeria remains in a profound state of crisis today,” he wrote.

However, he vowed to remain steadfast, insisting that his activism would continue, saying, “We will not back down. There are battered people to rescue, and the struggle continues.”