Court bars Sowore from making statements detrimental to national peace

A Federal High Court in Abuja has barred politician and online publisher, Omoyele Sowore from further making statements that are detrimental to the peace and security of the country.

Justice Mohammed Umar, in a ruling on Tuesday, threatened to revoke the bail granted Sowore’ should he ever make such statements.

Justice Umar held that since there was evidence that Sowore was a presidential candidate in the country before and having also earlier been granted bail by the court, with his international passport still being held by the court, he was entitled to be granted bail on self recognition.

The ruling was on a bail application argued by his lawyer, Marshall Abubakar, shortly after Sowore was arraigned on a five-count charge, in which he is accused of defaming President Bola Tinubu by refering to him as a criminal in his posts on X and Facebook.

When the charged, being prosecuted by the Department of State Services (DSS), was read to him, Sowore pleaded not guilty.

In the charge, Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in 2019 is accused of contravening the provisions of the the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Amendment Act, 2024 and the Criminal Code Act by calling President Bola Tinubu a criminal 

The two other defendants listed in the charge, marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/484/2025 are X Incorp (formerly Twitter) and Meta (Facebook) Incorp.