Court adjourns Sowore’s cyberbullying trial to October 2 for continuation of defence

The Federal High Court has fixed October 2 for Omoyele Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), to continue his defence in the alleged cyberbullying case brought against him by the Department of State Services (DSS), Daily Post reports.

Sowore is being prosecuted over his August 2025 posts on X and Facebook, in which he described President Bola Tinubu as a “criminal” and accused him of lying about the level of corruption in the country.

The court had earlier rejected his no-case submission and ordered him to open his defence, while his bid to have the trial judge recuse himself was also turned down.

At Monday’s hearing, defence counsel Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika (SAN) told the court that a subpoenaed DSS witness was not present. He recalled that the Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), had agreed to send another DSS officer to represent the agency’s Director-General, but nobody showed up.

He also tendered newspaper reports claiming the DSS planned to seek a suspension of the proceedings until after the next general elections.

Prosecuting counsel Akinlolu Kehinde (SAN) countered that producing the defence’s witness was not his responsibility, faulted the defence for relying on social media publications, and warned he would seek to foreclose the defence if it failed to proceed.

Justice Mohammed Umar ruled that since the witness was unavailable, the defence would get another opportunity to produce him, adjourning the case until October 2.

The next sitting is now the test of whether the DSS witness appears or the prosecution’s push to foreclose the defence gains ground.