The Department of State Services (DSS) has written to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, demanding the urgent deactivation of Omoyele Sowore’s verified account.
According to the agency, Sowore‘s recent posts about President Bola Tinubu have the potential to incite violence and jeopardise national security.
The DSS pointed out that Sowore, a former presidential candidate and publisher of Sahara Reporters, had called Tinubu a “criminal” on August 25 in response to the president’s remarks about corruption during a recent trip to Brazil.
In the letter dated September 6 and signed by B. Bamigboye for the director-general of the service, the DSS said the “tweet” ridiculed the president before the international community.
“The said tweet is still in circulation and has attracted widespread condemnation by majority of Nigerians, some of whom may resort to unwholesome activities to vent their grievance over it, especially supporters of the President who have started taking to the streets in protest, thereby creating political tension and threatening the country’s national security,” the letter reads.
The agency described Sowore’s post as “misleading information, online harassment, hate speech, and a willful attempt to cause disunity and damage Nigeria’s image”.
“The author and purveyor of the inflammatory online publication against Mr President is very much aware that the publication is prohibited by Nigerian law,” the DSS wrote.
Citing provisions of the Cybercrime Act, the Terrorism Prevention Act, and the Criminal Code, it claimed that the post constituted an offence that might be categorised as “domestic terrorism.”
The DSS demanded that X Corp take down the message and deactivate Sowore’s account, threatening to take “far-reaching measures” if it didn’t comply within 24 hours.
The agency requested that the post and its accompanying reposts be removed, adding that Sowore and X Corp could face criminal charges for the publication and its dissemination.
“It is against the above highlighted backdrop that we make an immediate and urgent demand on your Corporation to as a matter of its own policy, immediately TAKE DOWN the tweet and its attendant re-tweets,” the letter added.
“This demand is unequivocal with its attendant consequence.“Should you fail, neglect and refuse to comply with the command in this notice, the Federal Government will be compelled to take far-reaching, sweeping and across-the-board measures through our Organization, whose mandate covers such criminal acts.
“In the light of the above having been made official to you, 24 hours is sufficient enough to take necessary action.”
