The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, has demanded an apology from the Department of State Services (DSS) and the withdrawal of the alleged cybercrime case against him.
Sowore made the demand on Monday, August 31, during an appearance on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, where he accused the secret police of subjecting him to a wrongful trial.
The demand followed the DSS’s recent decision to ask the court to adjourn the case until after the 2027 presidential election.
Sowore said the agency had previously insisted on proceeding with the case despite the approaching election season but had now reversed its position by requesting a lengthy adjournment.
“We were already in court, and when we were in court, we made the same application several times. This is election season—presidential time—they said, ‘We recognise that, but we must try to finish the trial before the elections or during elections; we don’t care,’” the human rights activist said on the show.
“Now they have come back and said, ‘We want a long adjournment.’ We are not seeking an adjournment.
“We want you [DSS] to apologise for doing this to us and to show that you compensate people who are wrongfully tried for committing no crime at all. And you must ensure that people who make these kinds of decisions are displaced from the system.”
The DSS, over the weekend, instructed its counsel, Akinlolu Kehinde (SAN), to seek an adjournment of the proceedings until after the 2027 presidential election.
Sources said the request was intended to enable Sowore, who is seeking the presidency on the AAC platform, to participate fully in electioneering without the court case interfering with his political activities.
The case arose from social media posts published by Sowore on his X account and Facebook page on August 25, 2025, in which he described President Bola Tinubu as a “criminal”.
Following the posts, the DSS issued Sowore a seven-day ultimatum to remove them.
Sowore refused to comply with the directive, prompting the DSS to approach the Federal High Court for a determination of whether it was lawful for an individual to publicly describe the President or any other person as a “criminal”.
The DSS initially listed X, formerly known as Twitter, and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, as parties to the suit.
READ ALSO: DSS Moves To Suspend Sowore Cyberbullying Case Until After 2027 Election
The Federal High Court in Abuja later struck out the two technology companies from the case, leaving Sowore as the sole defendant.
Reacting to the DSS’s latest request for an adjournment, Sowore questioned the agency’s authority to determine the timing of judicial proceedings after initiating the case.
“This is not the country that we fought for democracy for—a country where somebody can just wake up because he’s the DG of DSS, go arrest somebody, detain them permanently or disrupt their lives, and then realise that you want to suspend [the case].
“You have no right to suspend the trial you have already started. You should go and withdraw your charges,” he said. “That’s the only way out, and that is the only provision left within our law books, their law books, to correct their anomaly.”
Sowore also accused security agencies of exerting undue influence over the judiciary.
He said security agencies were effectively controlling “the judiciary; the judiciary is an appendage of the security.”
The AAC candidate further recalled his previous encounters with the authorities, including his detention over an alleged failure to attend a court proceeding.
“Can you just wake up in the morning and say, ‘Oh, we’ve been trying Mr. Sowore for a year and a half now, seized his passport’?
“They even took me to prison for missing one court trial—detained me for 11 days, where I was kept with over 47 persons. I had to experience prison in this country, and then they say, ‘We want to suspend it.’ What right have you to determine things for the court?
“Well, you know, when an injustice of that scale is done to anybody, what you look at and react immediately to is, ‘Why in the first place did you have to do this to anyone, not even me?’ Because we’ve been here before.
“I was charged with treason in 2019 and kept in Nigeria for five years. They did everything they could. Within that period, you know, my family was almost completely ruined,” he said.
The dispute comes as political activities ahead of the 2027 general elections intensify, with Sowore among opposition figures preparing to contest the presidential election.