Muhammed Abubakar, Reporting
HUMAN rights activist and African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, has demanded a formal apology from the Department of State Services (DSS) and the immediate withdrawal of the alleged cybercrime case brought against him.
Speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Monday, Sowore criticised the secret police’s recent directive to adjourn the case until after the 2027 presidential election, describing the move as yet another injustice in a prolonged ordeal that has disrupted his life and political aspirations.
‘We Want Justice, Not Adjournment’
The DSS had over the weekend instructed its counsel, Akinlolu Kehinde (SAN), to seek a long adjournment of the case against Sowore, with sources indicating the move was intended to allow the AAC presidential candidate to participate fully in the upcoming electioneering process without court proceedings hindering his political activities.
However, Sowore rejected this gesture outright, insisting that an adjournment is not sufficient redress for what he described as a wrongful prosecution.
“We were already in court, and when we were in court, we made the same application several times. This is election season—presidential time—they said, ‘We recognise that, but we must try to finish the trial before the elections or during elections; we don’t care,'” Sowore recounted.
“Now they have come back and said, ‘We want a long adjournment.’ We are not seeking an adjournment. We want you [DSS] to apologise for doing this to us and to show that you compensate people who are wrongfully tried for committing no crime at all. And you must ensure that people who make these kinds of decisions are displaced from the system.”
The Origins of the Case
The DSS instituted the case against Sowore over posts he made on social media in which he referred to President Bola Tinubu as a “criminal”. The posts, published on Sowore’s X account and Facebook page on 25th August 2025, prompted the secret police to issue him a seven-day ultimatum to remove them.
Following Sowore’s refusal to comply, the DSS approached the Federal High Court in Abuja, seeking a judicial determination on whether it was lawful for an individual to publicly describe the President or any other person as a “criminal”. The agency had initially joined X (formerly Twitter) and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, in the suit, but the court subsequently struck out the two technology companies, leaving Sowore as the sole defendant.
A History of Ordeal
Sowore used the television appearance to recount what he sees as a pattern of state-sponsored harassment, noting that this is not the first time he has faced politically motivated legal action.
“This is not the country that we fought for democracy for—a country where somebody can just wake up because he’s the DG of DSS, go arrest somebody, detain them permanently or disrupt their lives, and then realise that you want to suspend [the case],” he said.
“You have no right to suspend the trial you have already started. You should go and withdraw your charges. That’s the only way out, and that is the only provision left within our law books, their law books, to correct their anomaly.”
The activist also reminded viewers of his 2019 ordeal, when he was charged with treason and kept in Nigeria for five years, during which his family was “almost completely ruined”.
Allegations Against the Judiciary
In a sharp critique of Nigeria’s legal system, Sowore accused security agencies of controlling the judiciary, describing the courts as “an appendage of the security.”
“Can you just wake up in the morning and say, ‘Oh, we’ve been trying Mr Sowore for a year and a half now, seized his passport’? They even took me to prison for missing one court trial—detained me for 11 days, where I was kept with over 47 persons. I had to experience prison in this country, and then they say, ‘We want to suspend it.’ What right have you to determine things for the court?” he asked.
Election Year Implications
With the 2027 presidential election approaching, the DSS’s decision to seek an adjournment has raised questions about the intersection of political ambition and judicial processes in Nigeria. Sowore, who has been a vocal critic of the current administration, maintains that the case was politically motivated from the outset and that only a full withdrawal and apology can begin to address the wrong done to him.
The Federal High Court is yet to rule on the DSS’s application for adjournment, but Sowore has made it clear that he will continue to press for a complete withdrawal of the charges rather than a temporary reprieve.
