DSS kisses Sowore’s dust

The Department of State Services has suspended its cyberbullying case against Omoyele Sowore, but the decision has given the agency’s critics fresh reason to ridicule it.

The episode recalls a scene from Ola Rotimi’s 1971 play Kurumi, in which a tortoise refuses to return home until it has been disgraced. The column invokes the play’s drummers, repeating “Disgraced! Disgraced!” outside DSS headquarters, to portray the agency as repeatedly stumbling into legal and political embarrassment.

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Brother Tortoise, Brother Tortoise, when will you be wise and come back home?

The dispute began after Sowore described President Bola Tinubu as “criminal.” The DSS objected to the post and, after threats to force its removal failed, demanded that Meta delete it and deactivate Sowore’s Facebook page. It warned of “far-reaching consequences” if Meta did not comply immediately.

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Disgraced! Disgraced! Not until I have been disgraced!

The columnist contrasts that demand with political speech in the United States, where social media users routinely use severe insults against the president without having their accounts deactivated. The column questions why the DSS focused on Sowore’s post when Nigeria faced other issues that, in its view, deserved higher priority.

The agency later filed a five-count criminal charge at the Federal High Court in Abuja, naming Meta and X Corp as co-defendants. The column says the DSS underestimated Sowore’s determination and the strength of his legal team. His lawyers brought up past comments by Tinubu that criticized former presidents in terms described as ethnic slurs, followed by examples involving critics who later became supporters of the president.

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criminal

The article presents the case as a series of tactical failures by the DSS and as a dispute that exposed damaging material about the president instead of silencing his critic.

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far-reaching consequences