Judge threatens revocation of Sowore’s bail over unguarded statements 

Justice Mohammed Garba Umar of the Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday threatened to revoke the bail granted activist and publisher Omoyele Sowore should he make further inflammatory statements detrimental to national peace and security.

The Judge in a ruling on Tuesday barred Sowore who is also a politician from further making inflammatory statements against the nation.

Justice Umar held that since there was evidence that Sowore was a presidential candidate in the country before and had also earlier been granted bail by the court, with his international passport still being held by the court, he was entitled to be granted bail on self-recognition.

The ruling was on a bail application argued by his lawyer, Marshall Abubakar, shortly after Sowore was arraigned on a five-count charge, in which he was accused of defaming President Bola Tinubu by referring to him as a criminal in his posts on X and Facebook.

When the charge, being prosecuted by the Department of State Services (DSS), was read to him, Sowore pleaded not guilty.

In the charge, Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in 2019 was accused of contravening the provisions of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Amendment Act, 2024, and the Criminal Code Act by calling President Bola Tinubu a criminal.

The two other defendants listed in the charge, marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/484/2025 are X Incorp (formerly Twitter) and Meta (Facebook) Incorp.