Human rights activist and SaharaReporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore, has dragged the Department of State Services (DSS), Meta Platforms (owners of Facebook), and X Corp. (formerly Twitter) to a Federal High Court in Abuja, over unconstitutional censorship of his social media accounts.
The case has not been assigned to any judge for hearing.
Sowore is seeking court’s nod to restrain the DSS from directing global tech companies to delete his posts, including one in which he called President Bola Tinubu a “criminal.”, he said in a suit filed by his lawyer, Tope Temokun.
These suits were filed to challenge the unconstitutional censorship initiated by the DSS/SSS against Sowore’s accounts maintained with Meta and X, Temokun said in a statement on Tuesday.
He emphasized that the case was not just about his client, but about free expression in Nigeria.
“If state agencies can dictate to global platforms who may speak and what may be said, then no Nigerian is safe. Voices will be silenced at the whim of those in power.”
The suit invokes Section 39 of the 1999 Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression, and argues that no security agency has the power to suspend or delete those rights. It also warns Meta and X against becoming complicit in political repression by bowing to “unlawful censorship demands.”
Sowore’s legal team is seeking declarations that the DSS has no authority to censor Nigerians online and that Meta and X must protect users against unlawful interference.
The statement said:
“This struggle is not about personalities,” the statement added. “It is about principle. And we shall resist every attempt to turn Nigeria into a digital dictatorship.”
