The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and Amnesty International Nigeria have urged President Bola Tinubu to withdraw criminal charges filed against activist Omoyele Sowore and the social media platforms X and Facebook.
In a joint letter dated September 20, 2025, the groups called for an end to what they described as the misuse of judicial processes by the Department of State Services (DSS) and other security agencies to silence dissent.
They also called on the President to direct the Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, to propose an anti-SLAPP law to the National Assembly to prevent the use of abusive lawsuits to stifle public criticism.
The charges, which were lodged at the Federal High Court in Abuja on September 16, followed Sowore’s alleged refusal to delete posts critical of the President. According to the rights groups, two of the five counts against Sowore were brought under the Cybercrimes (Amendment) Act 2024, while three others—criminal defamation, causing public fear, and disturbance—were filed under the Criminal Code Act.
They warned that such legal actions are “neither necessary nor proportionate” and create a “chilling effect” that discourages free expression, adding that “the weaponisation of the justice system to crack down on peaceful dissent is entirely inconsistent with the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended) and the country’s international human rights obligations.”
The organizations cited a 2022 ruling by the ECOWAS Court which had previously ordered Nigeria to stop using a similar cybercrime provision to prosecute citizens for “insulting public officials online.”
They also recalled recent lawsuits filed by the DSS against Professor Pat Utomi and SERAP itself, arguing that these cases “illustrate the growing use of SLAPP lawsuits by the DSS and other security and law enforcement agencies in Nigeria to target, harass and intimidate Nigerians for the peaceful exercise of their human rights.”
The groups reminded President Tinubu of his own Democracy Day speech in June, where he vowed that “imposed silence of repressed voices breeds chaos” and that he would “still call upon democracy to defend your right to do so,” even if people call him names.
The letter gave the President seven days to act, warning that failure to withdraw the charges would compel them to pursue “all appropriate legal actions, including before the ECOWAS Court of Justice.”
Sowore, confirming the development on his Facebook page, stated that the DSS had filed a five-count charge against him, X, and Facebook, claiming that “because I called Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu a criminal, I have somehow committed a set of ‘novel’ offences they invented and spread across five counts.”
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