The criminal charges stem from Tsenyen's public complaints over what he described as the alleged forceful takeover of his family's ancestral land in Ngotugu'ut village, Shendam Local Government Area of Plateau State.
A former Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Plateau State, Shendam Branch, Gabriel Nkup Tsenyen, will on Wednesday be arraigned before the Federal High Court in Abuja by the Department of State Services (DSS) on a four-count charge bordering on alleged cybercrime and incitement arising from WhatsApp posts linked to a land dispute involving the President of the Court of Appeal.
The prosecution, filed as Charge No. FHC/ABJ/CR/317/2026, comes despite the fact that the ownership dispute over the land is already the subject of a pending civil suit before the High Court of Plateau State sitting in Shendam.
Human rights lawyer and former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Professor Chidi Odinkalu, who disclosed the impending arraignment in a post on his X (formerly Twitter) account on Tuesday, described the case as one of the most striking examples of the alleged weaponisation of state institutions in recent Nigerian history.
"Tomorrow at Court 4 of the Federal High Court in Abuja, the DSS will initiate one of the more spectacular cases of weaponization and abuse of power in recent Nigerian history," Odinkalu wrote.
