Sowore pushes for SSS boss to testify in cyberbullying case

Omoyele Sowore, who runs Sahara Reporters and is the African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate for 2027, said on Friday that the Director General of the State Security Service (SSS), Tosin Ajayi, should come and testify in his ongoing cyberbullying trial.

Mr Sowore is facing charges from the SSS for his social media posts last year where he called President Bola Tinubu a criminal. He argued that Mr Ajayi must appear himself because the original request was for him to come to court.

A few months ago, the defence team said they wanted Mr Ajayi to bring a letter dated 7 September 2025. This letter asked Mr Sowore to retract his posts that allegedly defamed Mr Tinubu by calling him a criminal.

Defence lawyer Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika explained that they wanted Mr Ajayi to testify because Uwem Davies, the SSS official who came as the second defence witness, could not answer important questions about the letter.

The lawyer pointed out that Mr Davies, who signed the letter, kept telling the court that he was acting on Mr Ajayi's orders. This meant that Mr Ajayi should come to explain more about the letter.

But in July, the defence dropped the request for Mr Ajayi to appear after the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, unexpectedly showed up in court to block the subpoena against the SSS director general.

Now, the defence has brought back the request for Mr Ajayi to appear in person, as the trial resumed this week. This came after the SSS changed its mind about pausing the trial until after the general elections.

In August, the SSS said they would put the prosecution on hold so Mr Sowore could fully take part in the election process without the trial distracting him.

The prosecution lawyer, Akinlolu Kehinde, who is also a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), had cited international conventions to support pausing the proceedings. But he changed his stance when the trial resumed on Monday. The judge postponed further proceedings until today, Friday.

During Friday's court session, Mr Kehinde argued that it was wrong for the defence to keep insisting on having Mr Ajayi subpoenaed. He pointed to a Supreme Court ruling from the case Ishaq v. Soniyi (2002).

He stated that the Supreme Court decided that if a subpoena is directed at a named official, it is unreasonable to insist that only that official must appear in court.

Mr Kehinde reminded the court that the AGF came to court on 28 July to lead the prosecution's team and made the same argument that it was wrong for the defence to demand Mr Ajayi's personal testimony.

He said the agreement was that an SSS official could stand in for the director general. He added that this official was present in court and ready to proceed with the case.

Mr Kehinde emphasized that the SSS boss had no personal interest in the case and was acting only in an official capacity. He said that since the SSS had cases in many divisions of the Federal High Court, it was impractical to expect Mr Ajayi to attend all proceedings.

"This case is over a year old. The prosecution closed its case on 16 March 2026," he said, adding that the choice of who should appear in court is up to the judge, not the defence.

He insisted that an SSS official "is competent to give evidence in place of the DG."

Judge Umar has postponed the case until 6 October to decide if the SSS director general can be forced to testify in person as a defence witness regarding actions taken by the agency.