DSS Asks Sowore to Delete Controversial Tinubu Post on X, Facebook

Human rights activist and former presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, has strongly rejected a letter from the Department of State Services (DSS) demanding that he delete a social media post about President Bola Tinubu.

Sowore, in a detailed response shared on his official  X (Twitter) handle on Friday, September 12, and addressed to the DSS Director-General, described the agency’s action as “unlawful, insidious, and fundamentally defective.”

The DSS had accused him of publishing “criminal, false, and malicious” content against the President and asked him to retract it. But Sowore insisted the agency had no legal authority to act as a proxy for Tinubu in matters of alleged defamation.

Quoting legal precedents, including the Court of Appeal ruling in Arthur Nwankwo v. State (1985), Sowore argued that criminal defamation laws were unconstitutional, adding that freedom of expression is guaranteed under Section 39 of Nigeria’s Constitution and Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

He also cited his history of clashes with the security agency, recalling his detentions as a student activist in the 1990s, his prolonged incarceration in 2019 over alleged treason charges, and the DSS’s disregard for multiple court judgments ordering his release and the return of his confiscated properties.

“The DSS’s attempt to demand a retraction is an incompetent and unlawful attempt to hold the President’s brief,” Sowore wrote. “Criticism is indispensable in a democracy. Freedom of speech includes the right to say what those in power find uncomfortable.”

Reaffirming his resolve, Sowore declared that he would not bow to what he called repressive tactics, vowing to continue speaking out against misrule in Nigeria.

“Freedom cometh by struggle. Aluta continua, victoria ascerta,” he concluded.