“Kanu’s Lawyer Urges Tinubu to End Sowore’s Prosecution”

Barrister Aloy Ejimakor, Special Counsel to the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has called for the immediate discontinuation of the prosecution of human rights activist Omoyele Sowore by the Department of State Services (DSS). The case stems from Sowore’s description of President Bola Tinubu as a “criminal.”

Ejimakor made the call on his verified X (formerly Twitter) account on Tuesday, arguing that a fair assessment of the case shows it lacks legal merit. He urged President Tinubu and Nigerian authorities to stop taking political disagreements to the judiciary.

“With every sense of urgency, I urge President Tinubu to direct the DSS/AGF to discontinue all ongoing trials of Omoyele Sowore. An objective assessment will show that these cases lack legal merit. Stop taking political disagreements to the judiciary; it often backfires,” Ejimakor wrote.

Sowore was scheduled to appear again on Tuesday at the Federal High Court in Abuja for the continuation of his trial. The DSS filed criminal charges against him, listing X Corp. (owners of X, formerly Twitter) and Meta Platforms Inc. (parent company of Facebook) as co-defendants in a five-count charge.

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Filed on September 16, 2025, by M.B. Abubakar, Director of Public Prosecutions at the Federal Ministry of Justice, the charges accuse Sowore of cyberstalking, defamation, and publishing false information against President Tinubu. The DSS cited his posts on August 25 and 26, 2025, in which Sowore criticized the President’s remarks during an official visit to Brazil, where Tinubu claimed his administration had eradicated corruption.

The security agency described the posts as “false, malicious, and inciting,” capable of causing public disorder. Exhibits submitted by the prosecution include screenshots of Sowore’s posts, official letters requesting their removal from X and Meta, and Sowore’s public responses rejecting these takedown requests.

A former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Sowore has been a persistent critic of successive Nigerian governments and has previously faced multiple arrests, detentions, and trials related to his activism and anti-corruption advocacy.