The Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday declined to issue an arrest warrant against activist and publisher, Omoyele Sowore, despite his failure to appear in court for arraignment on charges of criminal defamation.
Sowore is facing five-count defamation charges marked FHC/ABJ/CR/484/2025, filed by the Department of State Services (DSS) against him and two others.
The other two co-defendants in the suit are Meta (Facebook) Inc. and X Corporation (formerly Twitter).
The DSS alleged that Sowore, through posts made on his verified social media accounts, published false and defamatory statements against the agency and some of its senior officials.
The DSS accused him particularly of making a false claim against the person of President Bola Tinubu by referring to him as “a criminal” on his Twitter and Facebook accounts.
In the charge, Sowore is accused of contravening the provisions of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Amendment Act, 2024.
The message is said to be, “This criminal @ official pbat actually went to Brazil to state that there is no more corruption under his regime in Nigeria. What audacity to lie shamelessly!”
At the resumed proceedings on Wednesday, DSS counsel, Akinlolu Kehinde (SAN), urged Justice Mohammed Umar to issue a bench warrant against Sowore for being absent without justification.
Kehinde noted that the defendant had been duly served with both the charges and the hearing notice from the previous adjourned date.
However, Justice Umar declined to issue the warrant, citing the submission of X Corporation (formerly Twitter) — the second defendant — which informed the court that it had not yet been served with the formal charge sheet, even though it had received a hearing notice.
In view of this, the judge directed that all parties be properly served with the necessary court documents and adjourned the matter to December 2, 2025, for arraignment.
The PUNCH