DSS vs. Sowore: When National Security Becomes a Mask for Censorship

By LaBode Obanor

The Department of State Services (DSS) is once again prowling the edges of legality, and this time, the target is a tweet.

Activist and journalist Omoyele Sowore recently described President Bola Tinubu as a “criminal” in a social media post that criticized the president’s comments during a visit to Brazil. In response, the DSS, Nigeria’s domestic intelligence agency, launched a digital inquisition. It issued a 24-hour ultimatum to X (formerly Twitter), demanding that the post be deleted. When that failed, it escalated its censorship campaign by writing to Meta, the parent company of Facebook, urging them to deactivate Sowore’s account entirely.

The language in the DSS letter is quite dramatic, even by authoritarian standards. It accuses Sowore of inciting violence, promoting cybercrime, engaging in hate speech, and endangering national security, all because of a single tweet. The Agency warns of “far-reaching, sweeping measures” if Meta does not comply. But beneath this legalistic theatre lies a chilling abuse of power and a dangerous misinterpretation of the Nigerian Constitution.

As a legal professional with expertise in constitutional law and civil liberties, I must state unequivocally that Omoyele Sowore did not break the law. He exercised his right to speak, to criticize, and to call out those in power. That right is enshrined in Section 39(1) of the 1999 Constitution, which guarantees “freedom of expression, including the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.” Sowore’s words may be provocative, I must admit, but provocation is not a crime. Criticizing public officials even in harsh words is a fundamental tenet of democracy.

If calling a president “a criminal” based on public records or contested past dealings constitutes a crime, then democracy has already died. All we are practicing is a blatant authoritarian government masquerading as democracy. Because, in a democracy, public officials are not monarchs; they are servants of the people, and must endure scrutiny, criticism, and even insults. When a citizen’s opinion, however blunt, is treated as a crime, the state crosses the line from law enforcement into tyranny. This is how authoritarianism creeps in. Not with tanks on the street, but with gag orders in the name of “national security.” A government that fears words more than corruption has already lost its moral authority to lead

The DSS’s invocation of national security here is not only intellectually lazy but also legally bankrupt. Under the National Security Agencies Act, the DSS is tasked with safeguarding Nigeria’s internal security, not policing Facebook pages. The agency has no constitutional or statutory authority to act as a digital morality brigade. Its role is not to regulate the internet nor to oversee social media platforms. It cannot unilaterally determine what constitutes hate speech or cybercrime without the backing of a competent court of law.

Even the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention) Act 2015, which the DSS cites in its letter, has been discredited in this very context. In Incorporated Trustees of Laws and Rights Awareness Initiatives v. Federal Republic of Nigeria (2020), the ECOWAS Court of Justice ruled that portions of the Cybercrime Act, particularly Section 24, which criminalized “offensive” messages, are vague, overly broad, and in violation of Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). The ruling instructed Nigeria to amend or repeal these provisions. Instead, our security agencies have weaponized them to muzzle dissent.

And as for the DSS’s reference to the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022, it is a grotesque stretch and literally “offensive”. I mean, when have unflattering adjectives qualified as an act of terrorism? If that’s the case, then half of the country belongs in Guantanamo. The Act was designed to combat real threats such as bombings, kidnapping, extremist financing, not bruised presidential egos. Nothing in Sowore’s post remotely suggests any of the above. Equating harsh criticism with terrorism is not only absurd but also undermines the seriousness of actual national threats. There is no explosive device hidden in Sowore’s syntax, no AK-47 in his keyboard, and unless truth itself is now considered a weapon of mass destruction. His statement poses no threat except for the fragile pride of a regime allergic to accountability.

This is not the first time Sowore has been targeted. He was detained for months without trial in 2019 for calling for a social revolution, a call that courts later ruled fell within the bounds of free speech. This pattern of persecution continues because Nigeria’s security apparatus has internalized the belief that criticizing power is a crime. It is not.

What is truly dangerous to national security is the normalization of censorship, the suppression of civil liberties, and the habitual abuse of legal institutions to protect personal interests and political agendas. These actions erode public trust, deepen societal divisions, and corrode the moral legitimacy of the very state actors who claim to be protecting the nation.

If the DSS is serious about safeguarding Nigeria, perhaps it should focus on the hundreds of lives lost to insecurity in the last month alone, banditry in Zamfara, communal clashes in Plateau, and the continuing kidnappings across the North-Central. That is where national security is bleeding, not on Sowore’s Facebook page.

The Nigerian people deserve better. We deserve a security apparatus that protects lives, not political feelings. We deserve a legal system that upholds justice, not vendettas. And we deserve a public square where ideas, and yes, even uncomfortable ones, can be expressed without fear of deactivation, detention, or death.

Finally, Sowore’s post was not a crime. But the DSS’s conduct may very well be.            History will remember those who stood for liberty when it was under attack, while the cowardice of those who used state power to silence critics will rot in the footnotes of tyranny.

The views expressed in this essay are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the League for Social Justice.