Omoyele Sowore's Cyberbullying Trial: Key Developments Revealed

2027 Election Watch, Legal, Media, Politics

Sowore’s Defence Targets DSS DG, Onanuga in Court

A disputed DSS letter, a witness who disowned a Facebook-related document, and plans to call 20 witnesses have turned Omoyele Sowore’s cyberbullying trial into a high-stakes credibility battle in Abuja.

Atlantic Post

July 23, 2026

3–4 minutes

Bayo Onanuga, Bola Tinubu, cyberbullying trial, DSS, Federal High Court Abuja, Omoyele Sowore

Omoyele Sowore’s cyberbullying trial took a sharper turn in Abuja on Wednesday after his defence said it was preparing to call about 20 witnesses, including the Director-General of the Department of State Services, Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi, and the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.

The move followed testimony from DSS witness Uwem Davies, who told the Federal High Court that he wrote only one letter in the matter, the one asking Sowore to remove the post, and that the separate Facebook/Meta correspondence bearing his name was not his.

TheCable reported that the defence also told the court the Meta letter had actually been written by retired DSS officer B. Bamigboye.

At the centre of the hearing is a paper trail that now appears far less tidy than the prosecution’s original theory suggested. The witness, according to SaharaReporters and Punch, said the signature on the Meta letter was not his and that he never authored correspondence to Facebook about Sowore.

Punch also reported that Davies said the January 22 letter he personally wrote was the only one he could stand over, and that he acted on the directive of the DSS Director-General.

That detail is crucial because the court is not merely testing the wording of a social-media post; it is testing who inside the security service authored the letters, who approved them, and whether the agency’s record can survive cross-examination.

The defence says the documents are inconsistent, and that inconsistency is why it now wants senior officials, not just lower-level officers, to testify. In the words attributed to the witness and cited by Punch, the defence’s concern is that the “reason for certification is to be sure the document has not been tampered with,” a point Justice Mohammed Umar used while rejecting an uncertified document tendered by the defence.

The court also refused to admit a photocopied document tendered through Wayne Chikezie Elijah, a former member of Sowore’s legal team. The prosecution objected that it was neither the original nor a Certified True Copy, and the judge agreed, holding that certification is necessary to protect the integrity of a document that has passed through counsel’s custody.

That ruling, coupled with the witness’s denial over the Meta letter, gives the defence both a procedural setback and a fresh opening to argue that the state’s case rests on shaky documentary foundations.

The wider case began with DSS allegations over Sowore’s August 2025 posts describing President Bola Tinubu as “a criminal”. TheCable reported that the DSS filed a five-count charge in September 2025 and initially joined Meta and X as defendants, before later amendments reduced the focus to Sowore’s own social-media posts.

The disputed post quoted in the charge reads: “This criminal @officialABAT actually went to Brazil to state that there is NO MORE corruption under his regime in Nigeria. What audacity to lie shamelessly!”

Sowore’s legal position has also been complicated by a rolling series of bail and custody battles. The Guardian reported that the court granted him fresh bail on 30 June 2026 in the sum of ₦200 million with two sureties, while also ordering him to surrender his international passport.

Earlier, the same court had revoked his bail and issued a bench warrant after he failed to appear; last week, The Nation said the court threatened to foreclose his defence over repeated adjournments, although Justice Umar stressed that “Fair hearing demands that all parties be heard.”

The next procedural marker is 28 July 2026, when the defence is expected to continue. But the real investigative question is already clear: did the DSS and its officers generate a consistent, lawful record, or did the case begin to unravel once the witness box met the documentary trail?

Based on Wednesday’s testimony, the defence is betting that the answer will be found not only in the posts Sowore published, but in who actually wrote, signed and dispatched the letters behind the prosecution. That is an assessment drawn from the witness testimony and the witness list now being pursued by the defence.