Sowore Rejects DSS Demand To Delete Posts Criticising Tinubu
By Glory Ugoba
FORMER presidential candidate and activist, Omoyele Sowore, has accused the Department of State Services (DSS) of acting unlawfully after the agency issued him a letter demanding he retract online posts critical of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In a strongly worded response posted on his official X (formerly Twitter) handle dated September 12, 2025, and addressed to the Director General of the DSS, Sowore described the agency’s demand as “an unwarranted and fundamentally defective attempt to hold an unlawful brief for the President.”
The DSS letter, which Sowore claimed was “stealthily dumped” at the Abuja office of his lawyers, asked him to delete a tweet and Facebook post deemed defamatory against President Tinubu.
Rejecting the directive, the activist said the DSS had overstepped its constitutional mandate, stressing that defamation is a personal tort that can only be pursued by the individual allegedly affected, not a security agency. He cited a 2021 judgment by Justice Obiora Egwuatu which held that third parties could not sue on behalf of former Attorney General Abubakar Malami in a similar case.
“Your attempt to demand a retraction is an incompetent and unlawful attempt to hold the President’s brief,” Sowore wrote. “The DSS was not created as a security institution for political protection but has repeatedly acted as a tool of oppression against Nigerians.”
Sowore’s letter chronicled decades of alleged rights abuses he said were committed against him by the security service, from his detention as a student leader in 1993 to his 2019 arrest on allegations of treasonable felony. He also referenced the DSS invasion of a Federal High Court in Abuja during his bail hearings, which drew national and international condemnation at the time.
He further argued that the DSS’s demand violated constitutional guarantees of free speech and press freedom, citing Section 39 of the 1999 Constitution, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and global judicial precedents against criminal defamation.
“Criticism is indispensable in a democracy. Freedom of speech includes the right to say what those in power find uncomfortable,” Sowore wrote, quoting past Nigerian court rulings that struck down colonial-era sedition laws.
The activist insisted he would not delete his posts, vowing instead to continue holding leaders accountable.
“You have no business telling me how to criticise the President,” he said. “The determination of the Nigerian people to reclaim their country from thieves in power is unwavering. Freedom cometh by struggle. Aluta continua, victoria ascerta.”
As of press time, the DSS has not publicly responded to Sowore’s statement.
