HerRights Watch Slams Sowore Over ‘Sexist Smear’ on Female Cops

HerRights Watch slams Sowore for SaharaReporters article targeting female police officers, calling it sexist, false, and deeply harmful

Women’s advocacy group, HerRights Watch, has issued a scathing rebuke of SaharaReporters founder Omoyele Sowore, describing his platform’s recent article on female police officers as “a sexist smear campaign built on gossip, not journalism.”

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In a statement released on Monday and signed by its Convener, Onyinye Eze, the group said HerRights Watch slams Sowore for targeting two female officers—ACP Bukola Kuti and DSP David Victoria—serving under the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun.

“The SaharaReporters article is nothing more than misogyny disguised as reporting,” Eze said. “It falsely implies that women can only rise through favour or scandal—this is unacceptable.”

The group decried the article’s tone and content, which it said unjustly focused on a few women, ignoring the fact that most officers promoted were men.

Eze noted that ACP Bukola Kuti was promoted through due process, having won the Police Service Merit Award twice, which automatically qualifies officers for accelerated promotion.

The officer, she said, had been in service for over a decade and worked under multiple IGPs—not just the current one.

“If male officers were promoted under the same conditions, would Sowore imply they traded favours?” Eze asked. “HerRights Watch slams Sowore because his narrative is harmful, baseless, and gender-biased.”

The group also discredited the claim that promotions were skewed in favour of officers from the South West, stating that North Central officers were the primary beneficiaries.

Eze said the article relied on anonymous sources, stereotypes, and dangerous innuendo, calling it a “textbook example of character assassination.”

“This isn’t holding power to account. It’s scapegoating women for institutional issues they didn’t create,” she said.

HerRights Watch further criticized Sowore’s long-standing public behavior toward women, claiming his “disregard for respect and dignity” now extends to how women are treated in his publications.

“Sowore calls himself a human rights advocate, yet routinely publishes attacks on women in leadership,” Eze said. “HerRights Watch slams Sowore because his platform is now a weapon of media harassment.”

The group urged the Nigerian Communications Commission, media regulatory agencies, and human rights bodies to investigate the article for defamation and gender bias.

It also advised newsrooms and editors to adopt gender-sensitive practices and protect women in public service from malicious targeting.

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“This pattern of reckless journalism fuels hostility toward women and promotes impunity for gendered attacks. It must stop,” Eze concluded. “We will not stand by while women are used as pawns in political games.”