The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, surprised many by showing up for the prosecution on Tuesday in the trial of Omoyele Sowore, the publisher of Sahara Reporters and a presidential candidate, at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
His appearance was to oppose Mr Sowore’s request to summon Oluwatisin Ajayi, the Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS), for cross-examination by his lawyers.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that the SSS charged Mr Sowore due to his social media posts from last year where he called Mr Tinubu a criminal.
Mr Sowore, who is the presidential candidate for the African Action Congress (AAC) in the upcoming 2027 elections, faces charges of criminal defamation, cyberstalking, and incitement related to his posts before Judge Mohammed Umar.
This was the first time Mr Fagbemi appeared in the trial. He led a team of lawyers, including the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Rotimi Oyedepo, and lead prosecutor Akinlolu Kehinde, among others.
Mr Fagbemi urged the court to deny Mr Sowore’s request to have Mr Ajayi, the SSS chief, testify in his defence. He claimed that the SSS had been enough by allowing a second defence witness, an SSS official, to testify on the last adjourned date. He said that the request for Ajayi to testify seemed aimed at delaying the case.
Mr Sowore first told the judge on 22 July about his plan to summon Mr Ajayi and presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, as defence witnesses.
PREMIUM TIMES reported that Mr Sowore’s lead defence lawyer, Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika, made this statement after a subpoenaed SSS official, Uwem Davies, could not answer some questions from the defence team during the 22 July hearing.
Mr Davies, who came as a subpoenaed witness, introduced himself as the Principal Officer, General Services at the SSS. He confirmed that the court summoned him to testify in the case at Mr Sowore’s request.
He acknowledged writing a letter, as directed by the SSS Director-General, asking Mr Sowore to remove his post on X and Facebook because it was creating tension in society. The letter, dated 22 January, was the only one he wrote requesting the defendant to retract his post about President Bola Tinubu.
When shown a letter dated September 2025 addressed to the MD, CEO of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, the witness said the letter had his name but was not written by him. He mentioned that one B. Bamigboye, who was also subpoenaed, was his colleague in the same department but had since retired.
The witness stated he did not speak with Sowore before writing to him but acted on the direction of the SSS DG, Mr Ajayi. When asked more about his and Mr Ajayi’s relationship with Mr Tinubu, given claims that Mr Sowore’s post angered some of the president’s supporters, he said he could not confirm if they were supporters of President Tinubu.
He insisted that as a lawyer for the SSS, he was instructed by the DG of the SSS to write to Mr Sowore to retract his alleged false post about the president. When asked if he spoke with the president's supporters before writing the letter, Mr Davies said he did not but wrote the letter as directed by his employer.
At this point, Mr Olumide-Fusika told the court that he would have no choice but to subpoena the DG of the SSS because Mr Davies could not answer his questions as desired. Mr Davies said everything he did in this case was in his official capacity, not personal.
He noted that the subpoena he submitted earlier was served on the SSS and passed to him in his official role. The witness confirmed that he and B. Bamigbose worked in the same department but that Mr Bamigboye had retired and his current location was unknown to the SSS.
He said Bamigboye wrote the letter to Chairman/CEO X Corp on behalf of the SSS DG regarding this case. He also added that Bamigboye wrote the letter in his official capacity and that he had a copy of it.
Mr Kehinde then asked to submit both documents as evidence, but Mr Olumide-Fusika objected, and the judge agreed with the objection. Although Mr Olumide-Fusika mentioned he had 20 witnesses to call, he requested an adjournment to prepare his application for the issuance of a subpoena on the DG of the SSS.
He also applied for a subpoena to be issued for the spokesman of President Tinubu, Bayo Onanuga. However, the lawyer said that the court’s bailiff informed him that he could not serve Mr Onanuga with the subpoena.
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