Human rights activist and presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2023 general election, Omoyele Sowore, has dragged the Department of State Services (DSS), Meta (owner of Facebook), and X Corp. (formerly Twitter) before the Federal High Court in Abuja over alleged attempts to censor his social media posts critical of President Bola Tinubu.
His lawyer, Tope Temokun, disclosed this in a statement shared on Facebook on Tuesday, explaining that the suit was filed to challenge “the unconstitutional censorship initiated by the DSS/SSS against Sowore’s accounts maintained with Meta and X.”
He stressed that the case is fundamentally about defending free speech.
“If state agencies can dictate to global platforms who may speak and what may be said, then no Nigerian is safe; their voices will be silenced at the whim of those in power.
Censorship of political criticism is alien to democracy. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in Section 39, guarantees every citizen the right to freedom of expression, without interference.
No security agency, no matter how powerful, can suspend or delete those rights,” the statement partly read.
Temokun also warned that Meta and X risk becoming complicit in repression if they yield to state pressure.
“Meta and X must also understand this: when they bow to unlawful censorship demands, they become complicit in the suppression of liberty.
They cannot hide behind neutrality while authoritarianism is exported onto their platforms,” he added.
The suit seeks a declaration that the DSS has no legal authority to censor Nigerians on social media and that Meta and X must not serve as “tools of repression.”
In a separate Facebook post on Tuesday, Sowore described the DSS action as a breach of human rights.
“The State Security Service, alias @OfficialDSSNG, today filed a five-count charge at the Federal High Court in Abuja against ‘X’ (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and myself.
They claimed that because I called Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu a criminal, I have somehow committed a set of ‘novel’ offences they invented and spread across five counts.
Regardless, I will be present whenever this case is assigned for trial. #RevolutionNow,” he wrote.
It will be recalled that the DSS had already filed a five-count charge against Sowore, Meta, and X before the Federal High Court in Abuja. The charge, marked FHC/ABJ/CR/484/2025, was filed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, M. B. Abubakar.
The government alleged that Sowore’s post amounted to offences under Section 24(1)(b) of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Amendment Act, 2024, and Sections 59 and 375 of the Criminal Code Act.
The controversial post, dated August 25, followed Tinubu’s statement in Brazil that his administration had ended corruption in Nigeria. Sowore responded by calling the president a “criminal,” a remark that attracted the DSS’s attention.
The agency subsequently wrote to X and Meta, demanding that Sowore’s accounts be deactivated and the post removed.
