Department of State Services, DSS, has instructed its private counsel, Akinolu Kehinde, SAN, to take steps to suspend the case of alleged cyberbullying it instituted against African Action Congress, AAC, presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore until after the next presidential election, slated for January 16, 2027.
The DSS had approached the court to determine whether it was proper for Sowore to allegedly cyberbully President Bola Tinubu on his August 25, 2025 posts on his X handle and Facebook page, referring to the President as a “criminal.”
The secret police stated that the Sowore matter was to seek judicial interpretation on the propriety of arbitrarily calling President Tinubu, or any individual, a criminal, in the same way it approached the court to rule on the legality of Professor Pat Utomi’s “Shadow Government.”
The DSS, in a September 6, 2025 letter to the chairman of Meta Corp, stated that, aside from protecting the President from physical threats, it is also empowered by law to protect him from psychological attacks.
After Sowore’s posts, the DSS gave him seven days to pull them down. After the expiration of the ultimatum, with the politician still refusing to pull down the posts, the secret police, without inviting or arresting him, approached the court for adjudication on September 16, 2025.
A source close to the DSS lawyer disclosed that the Director-General, Tosin Ajayi, met with the senior lawyer and top officers of the DSS’ legal directorate on August 20, a day after the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, officially lifted the ban on presidential campaigns, to consider pausing the court case to enable Sowore to fully exercise his right to contest the upcoming presidential election.
“The DSS boss reportedly told the Senior Advocate and his directorate of legal services that, with the commencement of presidential campaigns, it would only be fair to pause the court case in order to enable Sowore to fully participate in the upcoming elections without let or hindrance,” the source disclosed.
He added, “The DSS boss told the lawyers that, since the matter had been in court for nearly a year, suspending it for another four months wouldn’t make much difference.”
The source added that the position of the DSS on suspending the matter involving Sowore is expected to be formally communicated to the Federal High Court Abuja from Monday, September 14, 2026, when the court is expected to resume normal sittings after returning from its annual judicial vacation.
(Follow AIT News on WhatsApp, AfricaIndependentTV on YouTube, ait_online on Facebook and X (Formerly Twitter), and officialait on TikTok, Instagram and Threads)
Editor: Terverr Tyav
