Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS) has given X Corp (formerly Twitter) just 24 hours to remove a post by activist Omoyele Sowore and ban his verified account, warning that failure to comply would attract “far-reaching, sweeping and across-the-board measures” from the federal government.
The ultimatum instantly drew echoes of 2021, when the Muhammadu Buhari administration banned Twitter for seven months after the platform deleted a presidential post, a move widely condemned as an assault on free speech.
In its letter, dated September 6 and signed by B. Bamigboye for the Director-General, the DSS said Sowore’s August 25 post describing President Bola Tinubu as a “criminal” amounted to hate speech, online harassment, misleading information, and a deliberate attempt to incite unrest.
The agency said the publication ridiculed the president before the international community and could trigger violent reactions from supporters already taking to the streets.
“The said tweet is still in circulation and has attracted widespread condemnation by majority of Nigerians, some of whom may resort to unwholesome activities to vent their grievance over it, especially supporters of the president who have started taking to the streets in protest, thereby creating political tension and threatening the country’s national security,” the DSS wrote.
The agency added that both Sowore and X Corp could be held criminally liable for the publication and its circulation, insisting that not only the post but also all reposts must be deleted.
“It is against the above highlighted backdrop that we make an immediate and urgent demand on your Corporation to as a matter of its own policy, immediately TAKE DOWN the tweet and its attendant re-tweets,” the letter read.
“This demand is unequivocal with its attendant consequence. Should you fail, neglect and refuse to comply with the command in this notice, the Federal Government will be compelled to take far-reaching, sweeping and across-the-board measures through our organisation, whose mandate covers such criminal acts.
“In the light of the above having been made official to you, 24 hours is sufficient enough to take necessary action.”
The DSS also cited Nigeria’s Criminal Code, the Cybercrime Act, and the Terrorism Prevention Act, arguing that Sowore’s publication could qualify as “domestic terrorism.”
The warning has reignited debates about state censorship in Nigeria, with many recalling how the Buhari-era Twitter ban isolated the country digitally and sparked international backlash, raising fears of a renewed clash between government control and free expression on global platforms.
