SERAP, Amnesty Tell Tinubu To Withdraw Charges Against Sowore, X, Facebook

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and Amnesty International (AI) person asked President Bola Tinubu to retreat the complaint filed against Omoyele Sowore, X and Facebook.

The organisations, successful a associated missive dated September 20, 2025, besides expressed concerns astir authorities information agencies’ expanding usage of tribunal cases to harass and intimidate Nigerians.

SERAP and AI had categorised the complaint filed by the Department of State Services (DSS) against Sowore and the 2 societal media platforms linked to his alleged “anti-Tinubu” posts arsenic Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), an alleged ineligible maneuver utilized to soundlessness critics.

SERAP and Amnesty International stressed that the usage of SLAPPs generates a chilling effect that inhibits the enjoyment of quality rights and the circulation of ideas and information.

Apart from calling connected the President to nonstop the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), to instantly retreat the charges, the organisations besides privation the AGF to draught and contiguous anti-SLAPP authorities to the National Assembly.

They argued that this determination would support Nigerians from the misuse of the justness strategy and safeguard the cardinal close to state of expression, described arsenic a cornerstone of immoderate antiauthoritarian society.

In the missive signed by SERAP’s lawman director, Kolawole Oluwadare, and AI Nigeria’s director, Isa Sanusi, they maintained that nationalist officials, owed to their positions, indispensable tolerate a higher grade of criticism.

The suit against Sowore, which includes 5 counts nether the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) (Amendment) Act 2024 and the Criminal Code Act, was filed aft the activistic reportedly refused to delete posts deemed captious of President Tinubu.

According to the organisations, this is not the archetypal clip Sowore has been targeted, adding that the DSS, which brought the charges connected behalf of the Federal Government, has a caller past of utilizing specified ineligible manoeuvres.

They cited a akin lawsuit against Professor Pat Utomi, a erstwhile statesmanlike campaigner who was sued successful May 2025 for allegedly attempting to illegally usurp enforcement powers by forming a shadiness government.

The organisations gave the Tinubu-led medication a 7-day ultimatum to act, threatening further ineligible enactment earlier the ECOWAS Court of Justice if the charges were not withdrawn.

They further stated, “Freedom of look is simply a cardinal quality close and afloat enjoyment of this close is cardinal to achieving idiosyncratic state and processing democracy. It is not lone the cornerstone of democracy, but indispensable to a thriving civilian society.

“Any restrictions connected quality rights, including the close to state of expression, indispensable conscionable the conditions of legality, service arsenic 1 of the morganatic purposes expressly provided for successful the Nigerian Constitution and quality rights treaties, and indispensable beryllium indispensable and proportionate to that purpose.

“Nigerian and determination quality rights courts person consistently held that politicians should expect acold greater disapproval of their actions and functioning than mean individuals. These courts and different quality rights mechanisms person renounced defamation arsenic a ineligible instrumentality to suffocate dissent.

Furthermore, the UN Human Rights Committee, the autarkic adept assemblage that monitors authorities compliance with the International Covenant connected Civil and Political Rights, successful its General Comment No. 34, states that successful circumstances of nationalist debate, ‘the worth placed by the Covenant upon uninhibited look is peculiarly high.

“According to the Committee, ‘the specified information that forms of look are considered insulting to a nationalist fig is insufficient to warrant the imposition of penalties.

“The Committee besides stated that, ‘all nationalist figures, including those exercising the highest governmental authorization specified arsenic heads of authorities and government, are legitimately taxable to disapproval and governmental opposition.

“In addition, the Committee has called connected states, including Nigeria, to decriminalise defamation due to the fact that transgression penalties are ever disproportionate punishments for reputational harm.

“The Committee has stated that defamation laws indispensable guarantee they bash not serve, successful practice, to contravene the rights to state of look and information,” they stated.