The State Security Services (SSS), on Thursday, tendered at the Federal High Court in Abuja a generated copy of the social media messages posted by rights activist Omoyele Sowore in August 2025 calling President Bola Tinubu a criminal.
SSS also played the video evidence of President Tinubu’s speech made on 26 August 2025, during his state’s visit to Brazil, which motivated Mr Sowore’s social media post.
The agency took these steps before trial judge Mohammed Umar during Thursday’s hearing in the trial of Mr Sowore, the publisher of Sahara Reporters, on charges of cyberstalking Mr Tinubu.
Both the message and the video recording in a flash drive were admitted in evidence and marked as exhibits by the judge. Defence lawyer Marshal Abubakar reserved his objection for final written addresses stage.
The development occurred when the security agency’s first prosecution witness and an operative of the SSS, Cyril Nosike, was testifying, led prosecution lawyer, Akinlolu Kehinde, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Sowore is being prosecuted for referring to the president as “criminal” in his posts via his X and Facebook handles.
Mr Sowore was originally charged alongside the parent companies of X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook on 5 December 2025.
But a recent amendment to the charges saw X Incorp and Meta (Facebook) Incorp dropped from the case as defendants. It left Mr Sowore as the sole defendant.
The amendment also pruned down the number of counts from five to two.
Following the amendment, the SSS rearraigned Mr Sowore on Monday, when the former presidential candidate again pleaded not guilty to the charges.
What SSS witness said
Testifying on Thursday, Mr Nosike said he works at the Cyberspace Monitoring Centre of the service.
He said his duties included monitoring the cyberspace 24 hours, night and day.
“I am here to give evidence in support of the charges filed against the defendant,” he said.
Narrating how he came across Mr Sowore’s post, he said: “On the 26th of August, 2025, in the course of my duty at the Cyberspace Monitoring Centre, I detected and monitored a post by the defendant through his X handle.
“The post was referenced as such: ‘This criminal @officialABAT actually went to Brazil to say that there is no more corruption under his regime in Nigeria. What an audacity to lie shamelessly’.’”
The witness explained that the X handle, “@officialABAT,” is the official X handle of the President and Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria.
He said after he came across the president’s video, he downloaded it and saved it in a flash drive and marked the flash drive as “XYZ.”
He said he equally had a certificate of compliance of to back this in compliance with the Evidence Act.
The judge admitted the flash drive as Exhibit A and the certificate of compliance as Exhibit B, after defence lawyer Mr Abubakar said he would respond in appropriate time.
The video recording was then played for some minutes.
More exhibits admitted
The video showed President Tinubu, who was believed to be in Brazil at the time, speaking about the achievements of his administration and encouraged the Brazilians to invest in Nigeria because there was now a conducive business environment, where there is no more corruption.
Mr Nosike said when he saw Mr Sowore’s post, he made a screenshot of it, including the reaction and a certificate of compliance to back it.
The judge equally admitted these in evidence and marked them as Exhibit C and Exhibit C1. The defendant’s lawyer reserved his objection to the exhibits till final address stage.
When the prosecution lawyer asked the witness what his office did seeing the post, he said: “Seeing the reactions from this post, the DSS (SSS) wrote a letter officially to the owners of X and Facebook, which is Meta, through their email addresses.
“We also have the screenshot of the letter and certificate of compliance
“The letter was for them to take down the posts considering that the statement on that post was generating lots of tension.”
The screenshot of the letter was marked at Exhibit D by the judge.
The witness further told the court that the SSS also wrote a letter to Mr Sowore through his lawyers and that they also acknowledged the receipt of the letter.
According to him, the letter was a demand to retract that post. The judge, Mr Umar, admitted it in evidence and marked it as Exhibit E. Mr Abubakar reserved his objection.
The witness said after Mr Sowore received the letter, despite being a classified information, “he went ahead to post this on his X and Meta platforms.”
Mr Sowore had vowed never to delete the post on the two platforms. Both X and Facebook also refused to act on the SSS’ demand at the time, prompting the agency to file charges against the trio last month.
According to him, as expected, the letter also garnered reactions from Nigerians and the content of the reactions of that letter were far-reaching and painted the service in bad light.
The officer said he made a screenshot of the post and had a certificate of compliance in support and it was admitted as Exhibit F.
Sowore’s post inciting
The witness told the court that Mr Sowore’s inciting posts made their work, as security agencies, complicated.
“We have officers and men who have sworn on oath to put themselves on the line for the security and stability of this country.
“Such inciting posts that generate tension, make our work more difficult and we take such issues very seriously,” Mr Nosike said.
When Mr Abubakar was asked to cross-examine the witness, he prayed the court to allow him study the evidence of the witness.
He, therefore, sought an adjournment to February but DSS counsel objected.
Kehinde argued that Section 396(3) of Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015, stipulates day-to-day trial after arraignment.
He said there was no basis for Mr Abubakar’s plea for adjournment.
Mr Umar subsequently adjourned the matter until 27 January for cross-examination of the first prosecution witness and continuation of hearing.
But Mr Sowore has denied any wrongdoing during his several public appearances.
He accused the SSS of acting as a busy-body, as Mr Tinubu who was directly affected by his post had yet to complain about it.
He also accused the agency of misuse of public funds to pursue the case in defence of Mr Tinubu, who never sent any complaint. He said the SSS was deploying scarce resources, including manpower to pursue the case, which he described as frivolous, when it ought to be concerned with sourcing and sharing intelligence with relevant security agencies to combat the serious insecurity the nation was grappling with.
(NAN)
