How Osinbajo Clashed with DSS Over Sowore’s Detention

A new book has revealed how former Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, confronted the Department of State Services (DSS) over its refusal to obey a court order for the release of Sahara Reporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore, during the Muhammadu Buhari administration.

The account is detailed in I Write What I Like, a 198-page book authored by journalist and rights activist, Richard Akinnola.

According to Akinnola, Osinbajo was unsettled by the DSS’s defiance of the court order in 2019, insisting that such disregard for the rule of law could not happen under his watch. The Vice President reportedly reminded the agency that he had “a job to return to” after leaving office and would not allow his reputation to be tainted by lawlessness.

Akinnola wrote:

“Osinbajo said he had a job to go back to after leaving the office and he could not be around when such an order was being flouted. The DSS had told him that there could not be two presidents, a veiled reference to how Osinbajo, as acting president in 2018, sacked Lawal Daura as DG of DSS.”

Following Osinbajo’s intervention during their meeting, Sowore was eventually released that same day.

The author also recalled using discreet channels of influence in other cases, such as that of detained Shiite leader, Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, who later secured bail through similar efforts.

Akinnola’s book, which compiles his Facebook posts between 2017 and 2025, will be unveiled on Saturday, September 13, at the Airport Hotel, Lagos. The launch coincides with his 67th birthday summit themed “A Handshake Across the Niger: The Yoruba/Igbo Detente”, under the chairmanship of Iba Gani Adams, the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland.