By Danjuma Lamido

Today, 14th August 2025, Omoyele Sowore stands before the Federal High Court in Abuja to answer to charges the Nigeria Police have filed against him, charges of alleged cybercrime and forgery.

As expected, the matter has attracted intense public attention, with passionate voices on both sides already passing verdicts before the judge’s gavel even touches wood.

But the truth is simple: in a constitutional democracy, the only place where the merit or baselessness of such allegations can be determined is in a court of law, not on the streets of social media or the pages of partisan commentary.

For years, Sowore has positioned himself as a crusader for justice, transparency, and accountability, a man who demands that leaders be held to the same legal and moral standards as the rest of us.

If he genuinely believes in the rule of law, then he must also accept that the same legal system has the authority to question him when allegations arise. Selective acceptance of justice, applauding it when it favours you, but dismissing it as persecution when it doesn’t, weakens the very principles you claim to defend.

The police, for their part, have a duty to investigate and prosecute offences without fear or favour. If they have evidence they believe substantiates their claims of cybercrime and forgery, the right course is to present it before the court, and allow the judiciary to perform its constitutional role.

Conversely, if the evidence crumbles under legal scrutiny, then Sowore will emerge vindicated, and the police will have to answer for bringing a flawed case to court.

Nigerians must resist the temptation to pre-empt the outcome.

We have seen too many cases where public sentiment, often driven by incomplete facts, tried to substitute for due process. Justice cannot be built on hashtags, nor can it thrive on selective outrage.

It requires patience, fairness, and an unshakable commitment to the principle that every accused person is innocent until proven guilty.

Sowore himself has never shied away from challenging others to stand before the law. Now that he is in the dock, the fair and principled thing is to let the same process run its full course.

If the charges are unfounded, the court will say so. If they are not, the consequences must follow, not because of who Sowore is, but because the law applies equally to all.

As the case has been adjourned until August 27th, 2025 to allow the Nigeria Police Force to serve court summons on Sowore’s co-accused, let us therefore keep the focus where it belongs: in the courtroom, before an impartial judge, guided by evidence, not emotion. In the end, that is the only arena where truth, not noise, will prevail.

Danjuma Lamido is the Publicity Director of Integrity Youth Alliance and writes from Yola, Adamawa State. email: danjumalamido2011@gmail.com. https://web.facebook.com/danjuma.lamido

By Muhammed Balami

…A closer look at the gap between Sowore’s public claims and verifiable facts, and what it reveals about trust, manipulation, and public opinion.

In the age of viral clips and hashtag outrage, it does not take much for a well-staged scene to whip up public sentiment. Unfortunately, the recent detention of Omoyele Sowore by the Nigeria Police Force Monitoring Unit at Force Headquarters, Abuja, on August 6th of August, 2025, is a case study in how carefully crafted theatrics can mislead the public, tarnish institutions, and weaponize sympathy.

The detention, which arose from a petition alleging cyberstalking, defamation, and related offenses, quickly became a social media circus. At the heart of this drama was an image that surfaced online of Sowore with a heavily bandaged right hand. This image instantly became the rallying point for his supporters, who spun it as irrefutable evidence of police brutality. Outrage followed, with many lambasting the police even before verifying the facts.

Yet, while in detention, Sowore himself revealed in videos that he had refused medical treatment offered by the police, not because it was unavailable, but simply because it was a nurse, and not a doctor, who attended to him. This excuse is not only laughable but also insulting to the intelligence of Nigerians. Nurses are trained medical professionals who, in emergencies, are often the first point of treatment worldwide. In fact, contrary to his claims, the Police clarified in an official statement that the medical team was led by the Force Medical Officer – a senior professional equivalent to a Director, whose services he flatly refused. For someone who claimed to be “writhing in pain,” rejecting qualified medical care on such flimsy grounds makes little sense, unless there was actually no injuries.

The farce did not end there. Upon his release, another video emerged showing Sowore operating his mobile phone at the entrance of the IRT (Intelligence Response Team), with the same “injured hand” until someone reminded him of his supposed broken bone, prompting a sudden change in demeanor. The act was so thinly veiled that it could only fool those already predisposed to believe anything he says. And just yesterday, more videos surfaced showing him freely throwing the same hand about, without any bandages at all, at the entrance of the NYSC office in Maitama.

From a medical standpoint, the inconsistencies are glaring. According to orthopedic guidelines such as those of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, a simple wrist fracture in a healthy adult typically takes a minimum of six to eight weeks to heal, and that is with proper immobilization, follow-up care, and adherence to medical instructions. In adults over 50, like Sowore, healing time is often longer due to age-related bone density reduction. That means if he truly had a fracture from August 6, the idea that he would be tossing his hand about without protection within days is medically implausible.

Even more curious is his selective outrage. This is the same man who, during the July 21 protest, made much noise about his missing eyeglasses, a non-life-threatening inconvenience, yet he now appears oddly eager to move on from what he earlier insinuated was torture by the police. Given his long history of antagonism toward the Force, does anyone believe that if Sowore truly sustained a broken bone from police brutality, he would not have unleashed a barrage of lawsuits and international media campaigns by now?

What we are left with is a troubling pattern. Here is a man adept at exploiting trust, spinning half-truths, and staging narratives to rile up hatred against the police and manipulate public sentiment. Sowore thrives in the chaos he creates, and in an era where misinformation spreads faster than fact, such calculated deception is dangerous.

Trust is a fragile thing. In politics and activism, it should be earned through consistency, honesty, and evidence-based advocacy, not through theatrics and manipulation. Nigerians must be wary of those who treat their sympathies as pawns in a personal chess game. A society that allows itself to be swayed by the loudest victim-claimant without demanding proof risks making enemies of the wrong people and empowering those who prey on public goodwill.

Sowore’s recent antics should serve as a wake-up call. Not every cry of oppression is rooted in truth, and not every bandage hides a wound.