Activist and publisher of Sahara Reporters, Mr. Omoyele Sowore, has told the Department of State Security (DSS) that it lacked the powers to defend President Bola Tinubu in any matter of alleged defamation. He said that legal precedence indicate that it is the person who claims defamation that has the legal mandate to ask for retraction and to sue for damages.
“It is elementary that only the person defamed can sue. Therefore, your attempt to demand a retraction is an incompetent and unlawful attempt to hold the President’s brief,” he said.
The DSS had in a letter, asked Sowore to pull down an update on his X and Facebook handles where in allegedly defamed the president by using the word “criminal” in responding to a statement by the President.
Refusing to oblige the DSS request, Sowore said only President Tinunu has legal cover to claim defamation and not the DSS. He also said the DSS has no legal mandate to speak for President Tinubu and as such lacked the powers to ask him to retract his comment.
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In his response to the DSS published on his X handle, Sowore said: “You have no business telling me how to criticise the President.” According to him “In 2021, during the inglorious Buhari years, your agency propped up a sham group, the Incorporated Trustees of Global Integrity Crusade Network, to sue Sahara Reporters and me on behalf of the criminally minded Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN). They prayed the court to compel me and others to pay Malami ₦2 billion for alleged “trauma and emotional stress” caused by Sahara Reporters’ publications in July 2020.“
“In his judgment, Justice Obiora Egwuatu awarded ₦100,000 against the litigants, affirming the argument of our attorney, Marshal Abubakar, that they had no right to sue on Malami’s behalf, just as you have no right to act as proxy for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
Defamation, the judge reminded, is a personal tort. The AGF should have gone to court himself if he felt defamed.” Sowore also told the DSS that “Section 39 guarantees every citizen the right to freedom of expression, to hold opinions, and to receive and impart information without interference.
Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights provides the same. “Even in the UK, sedition and libel laws have been repealed as archaic relics of a bygone era. The UN Human Rights Committee in General Comment No. 34 has declared a free, uncensored media essential to democracy.
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Courts across Africa, including Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court and the African Court in Issa Konate v. Burkina Faso, have ruled that criminal defamation is unjustifiable in a democracy. “Nigeria’s own Court of Appeal, in Arthur Nwankwo v. State (1985), struck down sedition laws when Nwankwo was convicted for criticizing Governor Jim Nwobodo.
The court held that sedition was unconstitutional and inimical to free speech. Justice Adekeye, in IGP v. ANPP, asked how long Nigerians must suffer under colonial-era public order ordinances designed to gag dissent.”
