A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has revoked the bail of journalist, activist, and former presidential candidate Omoyele Sowore and issued a bench warrant for his arrest — a development arising from cyberbullying charges linked to social media posts he allegedly made about President Bola Tinubu last year. The move, confirmed on Thursday, means Sowore could be detained at any moment pending his appearance before the court.
The decision lands at a moment of acute anxiety for Nigeria's press community. The country is home to an estimated 22 million active social media users and a journalism workforce that rights monitors say is already operating under intensifying legal pressure. Sowore himself is among the country's most prominent media voices, running the Sahara Reporters platform, which has a wide readership both inside Nigeria and among Nigerians in the diaspora — and the chilling effect of his prosecution is already being felt in newsrooms from Lagos Island to Maiduguri.
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project — SERAP — responded swiftly and forcefully, describing the bail revocation as deeply alarming and inconsistent with Nigeria's constitutional guarantees and its obligations under international human rights law. The group warned that deploying cybercrime statutes against a journalist for social media commentary sets a precedent that could expose any critical voice — blogger, editor, or ordinary citizen — to criminal prosecution for holding public officials to account.
Sowore's legal troubles are not new. He was first arrested in August 2019 on treason charges after calling for a nationwide protest dubbed the 'Revolution Now' movement, and he spent nearly two years in detention before securing bail. That earlier prosecution drew international condemnation from bodies including Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists. The current cyberbullying case represents a fresh legal front against him under the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc.) Act — a law critics have long argued is routinely weaponised to silence dissent rather than protect citizens from genuine online harm.
SERAP called directly on Attorney General of the Federation Lateef Fagbemi to exercise his constitutional authority and withdraw the charges without delay. The organisation argued that the allegations — rooted in social media posts commenting on the conduct of a sitting president — fall squarely within the protected zone of freedom of expression and cannot legitimately constitute a criminal offence. "Revoking Mr Sowore's bail and issuing a bench warrant over alleged social media posts about President Tinubu is a disproportionate and unlawful response that puts the administration's commitment to democratic norms in serious question," the group said in a statement.
What happens next will be watched closely by press freedom advocates, opposition politicians, and Nigeria's diplomatic partners. If Sowore is re-arrested under the bench warrant, his legal team is expected to mount an immediate bail application, and civil society groups have signalled they will mobilise public pressure and potential litigation. A trial, if it proceeds, would test the limits of the Cybercrimes Act before the courts at a time when several similar prosecutions of journalists and activists are already pending across the country — including cases in Rivers, Kano, and the FCT.
For every journalist in Nigeria who has ever typed a critical sentence about a powerful man, the bench warrant sitting against Omoyele Sowore is not just his problem — it is a warning addressed to all of them.
