A Federal High Court in Abuja has scheduled October 27, 2025, for the formal charging of human rights activist Omoyele Sowore on counts of alleged cybercrime.
The previous attempt to arraign Sowore on Tuesday was unsuccessful because he had not been officially presented with the charges.
During the court session, the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) from the Ministry of Justice stated their readiness to proceed against Sowore, along with X Corporation and Meta (Facebook) Inc., who are listed as the first, second, and third defendants, respectively.
READ ALSO: SERAP, Amnesty urge Tinubu to drop charges against Sowore, X, Facebook
However, Marshal Abubakar, Sowore’s legal representative, informed the court that his client had not been served with the five-count charge.
The lawyer for the third defendant, Meta, confirmed this, noting he had only just received the service while in court. The second defendant, X Corporation, did not have a representative present.
The activist is accused of posting “an offensive post” on his official X account.
This alleged post, made on August 25 within the Federal High Court’s jurisdiction, is claimed to violate Section 24(2) (b) of the Cybercrimes Prohibition and Prevention Act 2024.
The Department of State Services (DSS) filed the charges against Sowore, who was the 2023 presidential candidate for the African Action Congress (AAC), at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
Muhammed Abubakar, a DPP at the Federal Ministry of Justice, and other lawyers acted on behalf of the DSS and the Nigerian government in filing the case.
The DSS had previously issued an ultimatum to Sowore on September 8, giving him one week to delete a social media post concerning President Bola Tinubu, which the agency labeled as “false, malicious, and inciting.”
Sowore did not comply with the ultimatum, which expired on September 15.
In response, Sowore filed two separate fundamental rights lawsuits in the Federal High Court, Abuja, targeting the DSS, Meta, and X Corp.
His legal team released a statement, signed by Tope Temokun, explaining that the lawsuits were intended to challenge what the lawyers described as the “unconstitutional censorship” of Sowore’s accounts on the social media platforms.
READ ALSO: Sowore rejects DSS demand to retract critical posts against Tinubu
According to Temokun, the legal action is fundamentally about “the survival of free speech in Nigeria.”
He stressed that if state agencies are permitted to “dictate to global platforms who may speak and what may be said,” then “no Nigerian is safe, their voices will be silenced at the whims of those in power.”
