Popular human rights activist and SaharaReporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore, has initiated new legal action against the State Security Service (SSS), also known as the Department of State Services (DSS), as well as Meta (owners of Facebook) and X Corp (formerly Twitter) at the Federal High Court in Abuja. He alleges a coordinated unconstitutional censorship of his communication on social media platforms.
In a suit filed by his attorney, Tope Temokun Esq., Sowore seeks a court order to restrain the DSS from instructing global social media platforms to remove his posts, including one in which he labels President Bola Tinubu a “criminal.”
“These suits were filed to challenge the unconstitutional censorship initiated by the DSS/SSS against Sowore’s accounts maintained with Meta and X,” a statement signed by Temokun on Tuesday indicated.
“The lawsuit clearly asserts that this matter concerns the survival of free speech in Nigeria. If state agencies can dictate to global platforms who may speak and what can be said, then no Nigerian is safe; their voices will be silenced at the whim of those in power.”
Sowore contends that censorship of political dissent is antithetical to democracy, citing Section 39 of the 1999 Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression.
“The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in Section 39, guarantees every citizen the right to freedom of expression, without interference. No security agency, no matter how powerful, can suspend or delete those rights,” the statement emphasized.
“Meta and X must also recognize this: when they yield to unlawful censorship demands, they become complicit in the suppression of liberty. They cannot cloak themselves in neutrality while allowing authoritarianism to infiltrate their platforms.”
The suits assert that the DSS lacks the legal authority to censor Nigerians on social media, that Meta and X should not permit their platforms to be used as instruments of repression, and that Sowore’s rights, along with those of other Nigerians, must be fully protected against unlawful interference.
“We call on all lovers of freedom, journalists, human rights defenders, and the Nigerian populace to stand firm. Today it is Sowore; tomorrow it may be you,” the statement concluded.
“This struggle is not about personalities; it is about principle. And we shall resist every attempt to turn Nigeria into a digital dictatorship.”
Sowore, a former presidential candidate, has had frequent confrontations with security agencies due to his criticisms of successive Nigerian governments.
Festus Ogun Esq. Versus Sanwoolu
In the same vein, another Lagos lawyer, Mr. Festus Ogun Esq., pressed a similar action against the Lagos State Governor, HE Babajide Sanwoolu, for blocking him on X over his controversial posts during the popular #Endsars protests, he has however resolved with the governor and might probably be withdrawing his action after he was unblocked on the microblogging platform.
