The Department of State Services (DSS) has instructed its counsel, Akinolu Kehinde (SAN), to seek the court’s suspension of the trial of African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore for alleged cybercrime until after the presidential election on January 16 next year.
The DSS had approached the Federal High Court, Abuja, to determine whether it was proper for Sowore to cyber-bully President Bola Tinubu in his August 25, 2025 X posts and Facebook page. The AAC presidential candidate had in the posts referred to the President as a “criminal.”
The agency stated that the Sowore matter was intended to seek judicial interpretation on the propriety of arbitrarily calling President Tinubu, or any individual, a criminal, in the same way it had approached the court to rule on the legality of Prof. Pat Utomi’s “shadow government.”
In a September 6, 2025 letter to the chairman of Meta Corp, the DSS stated that, aside from protecting the President from physical threats, it was also, by law, empowered to protect him from psychological attacks.
Following Sowore’s posts, the DSS gave him seven days to pull them down. After the expiration of the ultimatum, and with the politician still refusing to remove the posts, the secret police, without inviting or arresting him, approached the court on September 16, 2025, for adjudication.
A source close to the DSS lawyer disclosed that the Director-General, Mr 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 to enable Sowore 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 from Monday, September 14, 2026, when the court is expected to resume normal sittings after returning from its annual judicial vacation.
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