Justice Mohammed Umar of a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Thursday adjourned until 29 April for the hearing of a fundamental rights enforcement suit filed by the convener of the #RevolutionNow protest, Omoyele Sowore, against the Department of State Services (DSS), Meta, owners of Facebook, and X Corp., formerly Twitter.
Sowore, a human rights activist and publisher of SaharaReporters, in the suit is challenging what he described as unconstitutional censorship of his social media accounts.
When the matter was called, counsel to Sowore, Tope Temokun, informed the court that the third defendant had served on his client a counter-affidavit in opposition to his motion and that he needed time to study it and respond appropriately.
Following no objection to the request by counsel to the respondents, the trial judge, Justice Mohammed Umar, adjourned the matter until 29 April for hearing.
In the suit, Sowore is asking the court to restrain the DSS from directing global social media platforms to delete his posts, including one in which he referred to President Bola Tinubu as a “criminal”.
The suit challenges the alleged unconstitutional censorship initiated by the DSS against Sowore’s accounts maintained with Meta and X.
According to Sowore’s counsel, “The lawsuit states categorically that this is about the survival of free speech in Nigeria. If state agencies can dictate to global platforms who may speak and what may be said, then no Nigerian is safe; their voices will be silenced at the whim of those in power.”
He argued that censorship of political criticism was alien to democracy, citing Section 39 of the 1999 Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression.
“The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in Section 39, guarantees every citizen the right to freedom of expression without interference. No security agency, no matter how powerful, can suspend or delete those rights,” Temokun said, adding that “Meta and X must also understand that when they bow to unlawful censorship demands, they become complicit in the suppression of liberty.”
The suit seeks declarations that the DSS has no legal authority to censor Nigerians on social media, that Meta and X must not allow their platforms to be used as tools of repression, and that Sowore’s rights and those of other Nigerians be fully protected against unlawful interference.