U.S. Visa ban on corrupt Nigerian officials: Under the Magnitsky Act which was essentially what the US Mission in Nigeria reiterated on September 22, 2025 and which Sowore has been given credit for, Omoyele Sowore himself is guilty of the very things he accused Wike of. As a victim of Sowore’s usage of fake documents and previous concocted reports he’s published, I do not trust a single thing he publishes. It is almost always a hatchet job on behalf of a bigger fish or a bid to get the attention of any new person in office and make them his “customer”.
By Lilian Onoh
On September 22, 2025, the U.S. Embassy posted a reminder that corrupt officials would be denied visas – a routine reiteration of the 2016 Magnitsky Global Act which sanctions foreign officials worldwide for human rights violations and corruption.
It coincided with the opening of the 2025 United Nations General Assembly and I believe it was designed as a diplomatic reminder to governments worldwide to avoid trying to use the UNGA as pretext to seek US visas for corrupt officials.
To my greatest surprise, Nigerian media was suddenly flooded with news that Omoyele Sowore, publisher of Sahara Reporters, who parades himself as an anti-corruption activist, was responsible for the announcement by the U.S. Embassy. For good measure, a letter dated the same September 22, addressed to the Florida Attorney General about FCT Minister Nyesom Wike, was widely disseminated and published as proof of Sowore’s incredible “powers” to control the USA!
I couldn’t believe how easily Nigerians were deceived. Nobody seemed to remember that Florida is five hours behind Nigeria and that even if Sowere had sent in a petition to Florida, it was still the middle of the night there and nobody would have had a chance to see it, let alone act on it. At best, he would have received an automated acknowledgement of receipt.
Furthermore, it will take weeks or months for the office of the Florida A.G. to investigate his allegations against Wike and whether there is any wrongdoing on the part of his wife and children. So Sowore’s petition had absolutely nothing to do with the US Embassy’s routine reminder of the US’s global policy on corrupt officials and those abetting them.
Sowore, a consummate self-promoter, simply hijacked this routine reminder of a longstanding US policy and made it appear as if it was a brand new one he had engineered!
But foolishly, he forgot that he is also in the cross-hairs of the Magnitsky Act.
Why?
Because in July 2024, Omoyele Sowore admitted in US Federal Court that he was a willing tool and the hatchet man for Geoffrey Onyeama and the Buhari regime’s campaign to discredit me for whistle-blowing on the massive corruption in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had turned Nigeria’s diplomatic Missions into a massive international money laundering machine.
The media assassination campaign operated by Sowore on behalf of the Buhari regime was designed to shut me up for so many reports I submitted, including my protest about the sack of two junior officers who were witnesses of Ambassador Janet Olisa’s visa racketeering activities and Note Verbale fraud against the USA and 34 Caribbean countries during her tenure as High Commissioner in Jamaica – something for which Onyeama even tried to use the EFCC to arrest me for! I have the letter to prove it.
It was to shut me up for reporting that my predecessor in Jamaica had embezzled $2.8 million from the $5 million Red Cross funds raised for Haiti Earthquake victims after he had used the funds to trade in Venezuelan Oil futures for years at very high returns prior to the fake contract with which he made off with the money. All the documentary evidence was sent to Onyeama and the EFCC in 2016 without any action to date. If not for my proactive action with the incredible support of Ambassador Bulus Lolo (then Permanent Secretary), the remainder of the money would have disappeared, as it eventually did before Onyeama left office in 2023.
It was to shut me up for reporting the VAT fraud against the Government of Namibia by my predecessor, Ladan Sidi; the disappearance of the intervention fund released by Buhari for Namibia and other Missions, the disappearance of tens of millions of Dollars for two years’ non-existent posting exercises in the MFA; for N400 billion purportedly spent by the MFA on travel during the Covid-19 global lockdown and so many other egregious acts that I absolutely refused to participate in or be complicit in by shutting up about them – all with documentary evidence also sent to Onyeama, EFCC, Buhari, NASS etc.
Having openly threatened me that my name would be desecrated in the media if I did not comply with the instruction to put the blame for the theft of the Mission’s funds by Onyeama’s Namibian girlfriend on my Deputy Head of Mission in Namibia – an instruction I absolutely refused to comply with – the die was cast.
And the person to carry out the character assassination campaign was none other than Omoyele Sowore and his Sahara Reporters, a media juggernaut that was suddenly injected into Nigeria’s media space with so much financial backing for its immense algorithm and such unprecedented access to Government documents that red flags immediately went up as to who was behind its creation, which “coincidentally” happened not too long after the creation of the EFCC.
As part of his defence in the defamation suit I lodged against him, Sowore finally confirmed what has long been alleged – that he is hand-in-glove with corrupt Nigerian government officials who feed him documents to publish against their enemies.
Sowore submitted court documents stating that he knowingly collected a document created by Geoffrey Onyeama to discredit my reports of massive corruption in the foreign ministry and published it despite knowing it was fake. As proof that it was fake, Sowore had two different versions of the so-called report which he used to help Geoffrey Onyeama and other members of the Buhari regime engage in a vicious, still ongoing character assassination campaign against me for whistle-blowing – the very things that the Magnitsky Act was designed to deal with.
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In fact, Geoffrey Onyeama’s aide boasted openly that he had delivered a large US Dollar cash payment for the character assassination campaign to Sowore’s designated recipient in the USA during the 2021 UNGA – an act which would constitute corruption, money laundering, tax evasion and aiding and abetting corruption under the law. It was also a gross violation of the Vienna Convention by Nigeria’s highest ranking diplomats – Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama and Gabriel Aduda, his then Permanent Secretary, with whom he concocted the “report” that they gave Sowore for the media character assassination campaign, which Sowore has faithfully executed relentlessly for the past four years.
How can a purported anti-corruption “activist” be complicit in concocting a fake report with which to discredit a verified whistle blower on behalf of the Buhari Regime, arguably Nigeria’s most corrupt regime since Independence? He even went as far as to add Maggi and pepper to the fake report to help out Onyeama and Buhari’s cabal in their campaign.
So, under the Magnitsky Act which was essentially what the US Mission in Nigeria reiterated on September 22, 2025 and which Sowore has been given credit for, Omoyele Sowore himself is guilty of the very things he accused Wike of. As a victim of Sowore’s usage of fake documents and previous concocted reports he’s published, I do not trust a single thing he publishes. It is almost always a hatchet job on behalf of a bigger fish or a bid to get the attention of any new person in office and make them his “customer”.
He threw Onyeama under the bus in his court filings in a bid to escape being culpable under the Magnitsky Act but unfortunately, it established the exact opposite.
He himself filed the evidence of his own collusion with corrupt Nigerian Government officials to attack and discredit a whistle-blower (me) in court here in Texas. It was because of what happened to Sergei Magnitsky of Russia for whistle-blowing that the USA first enacted the Magnitsky Act in 2012 for only Russia before it was expanded worldwide in 2016. Sweet irony!
Sowore’s evidence that he submitted in US Federal court clearly exposed his culpability as an accessory under the Magnitsky Act, along with Geoffrey Onyeama; not to mention the domino effect on the many corrupt politicians involved in trying to do what was done to Sergei Magnitsky to me.
The reach of the Magnitsky Act is an equal offenders’ net. It will catch all, be it Wike or Sowore himself.
So, if the same Wike or any other politician with evidence were to file a report to the State Department showing that Sowore received documents/payments from corrupt officials to discredit their enemies or the DSS can show evidence that his financial records prove that he has received illicit payments from unknown sources and didn’t pay US taxes on them as a Green Card holder, Omoyele Sowore will fall victim to the guillotine he prepared for Wike – his Green Card would be instantly revoked and I.C.E. would deport him. In fact, if he is currently in America, I.C.E. may already be on his tail.
And if former IG of Police, Mike Okiro or other witnesses testify that Omoyele Sowore was indeed arrested on grievous allegations at UNILAG and jumped bail, as alleged in several publications, his Green Card would immediately be revoked and I.C.E. will detain and deport him because he certainly could not have got asylum in America if he put that information in his asylum application.
Like Abike Dabiri, the letter Sowore submitted to the office of the Florida A.G. might be the very template used to deal with him by I.C.E.
In conclusion, the so-called anti-corruption activist working hand in glove with corrupt Nigerian government officials, as he himself admitted in US Federal Court, essentially put a noose around his own neck. I rest my case.
- Lilian Onoh was Nigeria’s Ambassador to Namibia and former Chargé d’Affaires to Jamaica
