By TAIYE AGBAJE

The Department of State Services (DSS), on Thursday, tendered a generated copy of the message posted by Omoyele Sowore on his social media handles where he allegedly defamed President Bola Tinubu as evidence at the Federal High Court in Abuja.

The DSS also played the video evidence of President Tinubu’s speech made on Aug. 26, 2025, during his state’s visit to Brazil, before Justice Mohammed Umar in establishing its cyberstalking charge against Sowore, the publisher of Sahara Reporters.

Both the message and the video recording in a flash drive were admitted in evidence and marked as exhibits by Justice Umar after counsel for the defendant, Marshal Abubakar, reserved his objection and until final written addresses stage.

The development occurred when the security agency’s 1st prosecution witness (PW-1) and an operative of the service, Cyril Nosike, was being led in evidence by its lawyer, Akinlolu Kehinde, SAN.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Sowore is being prosecuted for referring to the president as “criminal” in his X and Meta handles.

In the amended charge, marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/484/2025 and filed on Dec. 5, Sowore is named as sole defendant.

Although Sowore, X Incorp (formerly Twitter) and Meta (Facebook) Incorp were listed in the earlier charge as 1st, 2nd and 3rd defendants respectively, in the amended charge, the names of 2nd and 3rd defendants were dropped.

Testifying, Nosike said he works at the Cyberspace Monitoring Centre of the service.

According to my duty is to monitor the cyberspace 24 hours, night and day.

“I am here to give evidence in support of the charges filed against the defendant,” he said.

Narrating how he came across Sowore’s post, he said: “On the 26th of August, 2025, in the course of my duty at the Cyberspace Monitoring Centre, I detected and monitored a post by the defendant through his X handle.

“The post was referenced as such: ‘This criminal @officialABAT actually went to Brazil to say that there is no more corruption under his regime in Nigeria. What an audacity to lie shamelessly.'”

The witness explained that the X handle; “@officialABAT” is the official X handle of the President and Commander-In-Chief of Nigeria.

He said after he came across the president’s video, he downloaded it and saved it in a flash drive and marked the flash drive as “XYZ.”

He said he equally had a certificate of compliance of to back this in compliance with the Evidence Act.

The judge admitted the flash drive as Exhibit “A” and the certificate of compliance as Exhibit “B” after Abubakar said he would respond in appropriate time.

The video recording was then played for some minutes.

The video showed President Tinubu speaking about the achievements of his administration and encouraged the Brazilians to invest in Nigeria because there was now a conducive business environment, where there is no more corruption.

Nosike said when he saw Sowore’s post, he made a screenshot of it, including the reaction and a certificate of compliance to back it.

The judge equally admitted these in evidence and marked them as Exhibits “C” and “C1” after the defendant’s lawyer reserved his objection.

When the DSS lawyer asked the witness what his office did seeing the post, he said: “Seeing the reactions from this post, the DSS wrote a letter officially to the owners of X and Facebook, which is Meta, through their email addresses.

“We also have the screenshot of the letter and certificate of compliance

“The letter was for them to take down the post considering that the statement on that post was generating lots of tension.”

The screenshot of the letter was marked at Exhibit “D” by the judge.

The witness further told the court that the DSS also wrote a letter to Sowore through his lawyers and that they also acknowledged the receipt of the letter.

According to him, the letter was a demand to retract that post.

Justice Umar admitted it in evidence and marked it as Exhibit “E” after Abubakar reserved his objection.

The witness said after Sowore received the letter, despite being a classified information, “he went ahead to post this on his X and Meta platforms.”

According to him, as expected, the letter also garnered reactions from Nigerians and the content of the reactions of that letter were far-reaching and painted the service in bad light.

The officer said he made a screenshot of the post and had a certificate of compliance in support and it was admitted as Exhibit “F.”

The witness told the court that Sowore’s inciting posts made their work, as security agencies, complicated.

“We have officers and men who have sworn on oath to put themselves on the line for the security and stability of this country.

“Such inciting posts that generate tension, make our work more difficult and we take such issues very seriously,” Nosike said.

When Abubakar was directed to cross-examine the witness, he prayed the court to allow him study the evidence of the witness.

He, therefore, sought an adjournment to February but DSS counsel objected.

Kehinde argued that Section 396(3) of Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015, stipulates day-to-day trial after arraignment.

He said there was no basis for Abubakar’s plea for adjournment.

Justice Umar subsequently adjourned the matter until Jan. 27 for cross-examination of the PW-1 and continuation of hearing. (NAN)