SaharaReporters, Sowore, And The Art Of Imaginary Power -By Danjuma Lamido

SaharaReporters, the renowned serial news fabrication blog, is once again at it; peddling another malicious and poorly imagined tale, this time headlined: “IGP Egbetokun Tells President Tinubu Sowore Can’t Be Caged By DSS, Notes His Passport Still Withheld.”

One almost admires the consistency. When facts are scarce, imagination becomes policy.

What is most astonishing is the inflated self-importance attributed to Omoyele Sowore in this concocted narrative.

It stretches credulity to suggest that the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, would be discussing Sowore with President Bola Tinubu at a time when Nigeria is grappling with far-reaching national development, security, and economic challenges.

The idea that a serial presidential failure and professional rabble-rouser occupies such strategic headspace is, frankly, laughable.

Then there is the deliberate misrepresentation of the Department of State Services (DSS).

The DSS is not an agency that “cages” people. It is a constitutionally empowered internal security and intelligence institution tasked with safeguarding national security through intelligence gathering, counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, and the protection of critical infrastructure, classified information, and key public officials.

Its mandate includes preventing subversion, sabotage, and economic crimes against the state, not engaging in the cartoonish villainy that SaharaReporters prefers to sell to its audience.

Let us also be clear about the legal facts SaharaReporters keeps twisting. Sowore was not merely “accused of” cyberstalking; he openly admitted to calling President Bola Tinubu “a criminal”.

In law, he who alleges must prove. That elementary principle explains the cyberstalking case filed by the DSS. This is not persecution; it is procedure.

As for SaharaReporters’ habitual invocation of a mysterious “senior government official,” Nigerians should by now know better.

No senior government official is feeding SaharaReporters inside information. The blog is notorious for inventing sources to launder misinformation and dress up fiction as insider reporting.

One must ask: which credible official would stoop so low as to leak a supposed private discussion between the IGP and the President to a blog with such a battered reputation?

On the issue of Sowore’s international passport, SaharaReporters again either displays ignorance or chooses deception. The Inspector-General of Police has absolutely nothing to do with the withholding of Sowore’s passport. That authority lies squarely with the court. The passport is being held as a condition of bail; it’s standard legal practice, not an executive vendetta.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that SaharaReporters now survives on manufactured outrage. If a day passes without dragging the Inspector-General of Police into a fantasy headline, readership drops, and its already eroded credibility sinks further. Sensation, not substance, has become its business model.

At this point, the theatrics help no one. Omoyele Sowore should stop clutching at straws, stop shifting his personal legal predicament onto the shoulders of an ever-busy police reformer, and face his criminal cases squarely in court.

Nigeria’s institutions are working, and no amount of fabricated headlines will change that reality.

Danjuma Lamido writes from Yola, Adamawa State. email: danjumalamido2011@gmail.com