Since its enactment in 2015, Nigeria’s Cybercrime Act, which was supposed to be a legal and institutional framework to prosecute cybercrimes in the country has been allegedly weaponised intimidate and detain social media critics, journalists and activists, VICTOR AYENI writes

Days before the fourth anniversary of the #EndSARS protests, tension and anxiety grew among social media users, Lagos State residents, and the authorities.

The annual memorial procession was observed to honour those who lost their lives during the #EndSARS protests against police brutality on October 20, 2020, particularly in Lagos.

However, each year, the police have repeatedly blocked memorial gatherings, especially at the Lekki Toll Gate, where the 2020 shootings took place.

On the morning of October 20, 2024, demonstrators gathered at the Lekki Toll Gate, defying a police declaration that labelled the memorial protest as “illegal” and vowed to prevent it.

As protesters assembled that Sunday morning, police officers allegedly responded with beatings and fired tear gas canisters, which dispersed the crowd.

Among the many activists leading a procession at the site was a nurse, Olamide Thomas.

“As we were marching towards the toll gate, policemen approached us,” she recalled.

“They shot into the air, then all of a sudden, they started firing canisters of teargas. That’s when we started running and they gave us a very hot chase.

“I was apprehended and they started beating me. They hit me with the bottom of their guns three times on my right leg, and one of the police officers slapped me twice,” Thomas said.

In a video live-streamed on her Facebook page, shortly after allegedly being brutalised by the police, Thomas cursed the children of President Bola Tinubu, Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, and the Nigeria Police Force Public Relations Officer, Olumuyiwa Adejobi.

In the video seen by Sunday PUNCH, the distressed activist was seen pleading with bystanders to pour water on her head, apparently after inhaling tear gas.

Two months later, the video clip went viral on social media, sparking heated debates on the limits of free speech and prompted a swift reaction from law enforcement officers.

Detained for cyber bullying

In the early hours of December 13, 2024, while many residents were still fast asleep, officers picked up Thomas from her house in Somolu, Lagos, and took her to the Alade Police Station located in the vicinity.

She was later flown to Abuja and handed over to the National Cyber Crime Centre of the NPF.

The police arraigned Thomas on four criminal counts based on her imprecatory remarks in the viral video which the authorities said violated Section 24 (2) (a) of the Cybercrimes Act 2024, and was allegedly meant to “bully, threaten, and harass the person of Seyi Tinubu.”

Describing her ordeal while she was remanded in prison, Thomas said she felt safer at the correctional facility because no one was attacking her unlike when she was at the Force Criminal Investigation Department detention.

“I was sprayed chemicals in the night while I was asleep. I only felt peppery sensations from my sleep and I woke up and started coughing.

“Then in the morning, I had epistaxis; I was bleeding through my nose and I felt that was the reaction from the chemicals that were sprayed during the night,” she recalled.

Police, netizens differ

Barely a day after Thomas was detained, the FPRO warned that “raining direct curses on someone online is cyberbullying, not an expression of freedom or criticism.”

Adejobi added, “Cyberbullying, which is even different from defamation, is a criminal offence and punishable. Be guided.”

Responding to the FPRO, a human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, dismissed his post as “a very ridiculous opinion,” and argued that raining curses on someone was not a criminal offence.

“Curses do not have effect or value in the eyes of the law for the simple reason that they are premised on superstition, or at best supernatural forces. For example, telling someone ‘It shall not be well with you’ is a prayer; prayer can be positive or negative. Wishing someone evil is also not a matter for legal redress.

“The law does not concern itself with trifling things or spiritual matters. What is more appalling is the fact that the supposed image maker of the Nigeria Police Force does not know that the Cybercrime Act has since been amended and that the notorious wordings of the provisions of the old Section 24 which the police have been using to witch-hunt critics has been repealed,” Effiong wrote.

However, an X user, David Fatumbi, sharing a copy of the Act, argued, “The amended Cybercrime Act 2024 has repealed Section 24 (1) (a and b). It doesn’t repeal section 24(2) which makes knowingly or intentionally harassing or bullying a person an offence punishable by a fine of N25m or 10 years in jail. So, the warning by Adejobi is sound.”

Sunday PUNCH gathered that the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention,) Act was enacted in 2015 and amended in 2024 to tackle cyber-related offences, including fraud, cyberstalking, and identity theft.

The infamous Section 24, before it was amended, criminalised the use of a computer to knowingly send false messages “to cause annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, ill will or needless anxiety to another, or causes such a message to be sent.”

The revised edition upholds the same punishment, but specifies the offence as computer messages that are pornographic or knowingly false, and published “to cause a breakdown of law and order, pose a threat to life, or cause such messages to be sent.”

Sunday PUNCH gathered that although the intended purpose of the Act was to protect citizens from online threats, sections of the law have been repeatedly exploited to target critics of the government and other influential figures under vaguely defined offences such as “cyberstalking and cyberbullying.”

On January 9, Thomas was freed after she spent almost a month in custody, and endured detention over the Christmas and New Year period.

Her lawyer, Seprebofa Oyeghe, confirmed her release in a Facebook post, stating that she had been released from detention after fulfilling her “bail conditions” granted by a Federal High Court in Abuja.

But Thomas’ life, after she was freed, has not been the same again as her employers, fearing for her safety, advised her to stay away from work.

“They told me officers came from the Commissioner of Police to the hospital and were capturing the surroundings of the hospital on video and threatening them.

“So, I am not working there again because it would threaten their safety. I have stayed back since then. I have not gone back to work since my detention,” Thomas added.

A consistent tool of repression

Findings by Sunday PUNCH revealed that aside from Thomas, the authorities have used the cyberstalking section of the Cybercrime Act to justify the arrests of journalists and social media critics.

On May 1, 2024, an investigative journalist with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism, Daniel Ojukwu, was arrested months after he published a story which exposed alleged misappropriation of funds by the office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals.

Ojukwu’s whereabouts was unknown until May 4 when he was in the custody of state intelligence agents in Lagos. Although the journalist was released on May 10, the authorities alleged that his report violated the Cybercrime Act of 2015.

Also, on March 15, 2024, the former editor of an online newspaper, FirstNews, Segun Olatunji, was arrested in his home by some soldiers, who blindfolded and flew him to Abuja on a military aircraft.

The journalist was reportedly tortured and kept incommunicado for several days until the Nigerian National Committee of the International Press Institute traced him to the custody of the Defence Intelligence Agency.

Olatunji, who later regained his freedom on March 27, was arrested following a series of accountability stories he published which were alleged to have violated the provisions of the Cybercrime Act (2015).

Similarly, on February 5, 2024, the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor of Informant 247, Salihu Ayatullahi and Adisa-Jaji Azeez respectively, were arrested and charged with conspiracy, cyberstalking, and defamation.

The charges were based on a complaint by the rector of Kwara State Polytechnic due to a series of reports that the news site published, which accused the rector of making false claims about the institution’s financial status.

In October 2023, police also arrested the founder of Naija Live TV, Mienpamo Onitsha, and charged him with cyberstalking under section 24 of the Cybercrimes Act and defamation under the criminal code.

The charge sheet cited a report he wrote a month earlier about tension in the Niger Delta region.

In 2022, the founder of Taraba Truth and Facts Newspaper, Ayodele Oloye, was arraigned for “inciting the public against the governor and defamation of character.”

Oloye had reported the plight of teachers who were owed 14-month salaries.

Journalists’ ethics

Commenting on the use of the Cybercrime Act, a former Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikorodu Branch, Bayo Akinlade, noted that the Cybercrime Act, like any other law, had its flaws and overriding purpose.

He explained that while the Act was enacted to regulate behaviour and protect individual rights, it should be balanced with communal rights vested in the state.

However, Akinlade pointed out that the term “journalist” should be defined as “an individual who has not only studied journalism but understands the rules, and practises it as a profession.”

He added, “Not everyone who picks up a pen to write, or comments on Facebook or TikTok is a journalist. In fact, a journalist is a professional who seeks the truth, investigates and tells the society from a non-bias perspective, allowing the people to decide for themselves how they should react to what they have heard.

“A journalist also has the ethical responsibility to weigh telling a story or reporting on an incident against the overall sensibility of the community and how the story, if told, will affect the safety and security of the community at large.”

The legal practitioner explained that the impact of a journalist’s work is immeasurable and might lead to chaos if not properly carried out.

“Hence, a journalist should choose his words carefully. Many unprofessional so-called journalists, bloggers and content creators do not have any knowledge at all of journalism and do not care about what they put out on social media platforms.

“For many of them, they just want followership and money, not minding that their content may cause harm to others. Real journalists know the difference between telling the truth for a better society and telling it for personal gain or to injure a person or a country. I believe if journalists do their jobs well, no law can ever shut them up or terrorise them,” he told Sunday PUNCH.

Responding to instances where the police detained journalists without legal representation and communication for days, Akinlade pointed out that the law mandated that suspects should not be kept for more than 24 hours.

“I don’t know if you have heard of the police duty solicitors scheme where lawyers visit police stations to check on suspects being detained and ensure that police do not keep suspects for more than 24 hours; or the provision of the administration of criminal justice law that provides that magistrates visit police stations once a month.

“There is no excuse for anyone to be in detention for more than 24 hours, except their lawyers are not knowledgeable about the law on this,” he added.

IGP, Sowore and others

In January, a leading activist and publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, was arrested and detained by the Nigeria Police for calling the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, an “illegal IGP” on his verified X handle.

Sowore was arraigned several days after his arrest on a 16-count charge under the Cybercrime Act before Justice Musa Liman of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja.

On January 30, the Federal High Court granted Sowore bail in the sum of N10m regarding the cybercrime case which attracts a penalty of N7m fine, up to three years imprisonment, or both.

About a month before Sowore’s arrest, on December 20, 2024, a fast-rising TikToker, Olumide Ogunsanwo, popularly known as Sea King, was arrested and accused by the Nigeria Police of committing treason, cybercrime and conduct likely to cause public disorder.

The charges against Ogunsanwo were linked to a video he shared on social media where he appeared to have insulted Tinubu, the Lagos State Governor, Babajide-Sanwo-Olu, and Egbetokun.

While Ogunsanwo appeared for the trial at a magistrate’s court on February 6, 2025, he was re-arrested and taken to the Lagos State Police Command at Ikeja, before he was subsequently flown to Abuja.

His second arrest was a result of a petition filed against him by a religious group— the Concerned Christian Youth Forum— over a TikTok post he shared in December 2024.

In the post, SeaKing had severely criticised the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, for urging Nigerians to fast for 100 days, describing the directive as “stupid.”

However, during the February edition of the Holy Ghost Congress service, Adeboye distanced himself from the TikToker’s arrest, claiming he was unaware of the incident or the individuals behind it.

Following his remarks, the police released Ogunsanwo on administrative bail on Monday after his legal team initially rejected certain bail conditions.

While Ogunsanwo’s case was ongoing, another popular TikToker, Timothy Gabriel, popularly called Tumma, was arrested on the evening of February 6, by a team of officers from the Berger Quarry Police Station in Mpape, Abuja.

 Sunday PUNCH gathered that Gabriel was later transferred to the Cybercrime Centre of the NPF on allegations of cyberbullying, cyberstalking, and other related offences.

In a video which went viral on social media, Gabriel was heard saying, “If any officer says he wants to check your phone, beat him. Even if the Commissioner of Police or President Tinubu says he wants to check your phone, beat him very well.”

Late in February, a podcaster, Armstrong Amobi, popularly known as KAA Truths, was invited by the NPF Force Intelligence Department after a petition was filed against him by the Concerned Christian Youth Forum.

The podcaster was accused of “conspiracy, cyberstalking, defamation of character, peddling injurious falsehood, and inciting violence” against the Senior Pastor of Dunamis International Gospel Centre, Abuja, Dr Paul Enenche.

Following KAA Truth’s release on bail, Sowore expressed his concerns about the pattern of harassment of citizens in a Facebook post and urged citizens to “put an end to this cycle of violations and the vicious coalitions behind it.”

Similarly, an Isoko-born comedian, Ajirioghene Otagba, was arrested in Lagos in February and detained over allegations of cyber-bullying and defamation of the Group Managing Director of Income Electrix Limited, Mathew Edevbie.

Otagba had made a Facebook video in which he questioned the alleged abandonment of the Isoko 132 KVA substation electrification project in Ozoro, Delta State.

We’re not witch-hunting people— Police

Speaking in a video posted on Facebook last month, the force spokesman, Adejobi emphasised that spreading falsehood, defamation, malinformation, distortion of facts and the likes online were criminal offences.

“Whether you are a content creator, blogger or journalist, you must make sure you verify your stories and possibly, balance your stories before you come online to peddle falsehood.

“I want to put on record that the Nigeria Police Force has not been witch-hunting anybody with the use of the application of the Cybercrime Act of 2024 as amended. We have not charged or arrested anybody for criticising the government, the IGP and the police. You can go and check the record.

“We arrested and prosecuted those who were out there peddling falsehood, fake news, disinformation and misinformation to cause problem and discredit individuals and institutions, to malign people and to kill people’s characters,” Adejobi stated.

He also urged citizens to avoid spreading false news and engage in disinformation, noting that there were laws which proscribed them.

“We don’t want you to see the police as the agent of the government witch-hunting and harassing you. Our job is to enforce the law. If you want to criticise us, be objective,” he added.

‘Police misusing cybercrime law’

Reacting to the wanton arrests of citizens for cyberstalking, a human rights lawyer, Kabir Akingbolu, told Sunday PUNCH that the Cybercrime Act is a good law that is in tandem with development.

However, he pointed out that the problem lied with the police who turned the Act to a tool to attack the press and punish individuals who merely gave personal opinions on someone else’s social media accounts.

“There are good policemen,” Akingbolu noted, “but there are some of them who are not. As a lawyer, I have handled cases where someone would file a petition of cyberstalking against someone because they have a connection with the police or have money.

“In most of the cases, the AIGs are not aware. It’s just officers who are allegedly collecting stipends from people and using this to witch-hunt others. How do we now say that we are in a democracy or that freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Constitution? The Cybercrime Act is not superior to the Nigerian Constitution.”

Highlighting the means by which an abuse of the law could be curbed, Akingbolu called for mass mobilisation and awareness.

“This is supposed to be part of the duty of the National Orientation Agency, the police authority and the Nigerian Bar Association. They should enlighten the people and educate them to know that they have the right to freedom of expression and freedom of speech.

“The press should also rise to the occasion and ensure that a campaign is mounted against the unholy alliance between unscrupulous policemen and the oppressors in society.

“The police that are found wanting in this regard should be thoroughly dealt with, dismissed or made to face orderly room trial or suspension. A sort of punishment should be meted out to them,” Akingbolu added.

In a similar vein, the Executive Director of the International Human Rights and Dignity Defenders, David Omeike, described the use of the cybercrime law to gag Nigerian journalists and activists as pathetic, and in conflicts with the tenets of democracy.

He explained that the rights to freedom of expression and information are enshrined in the country’s constitution.

“The game is clear. The vague and overtly bloated Cybercrime Act creates room for some corrupt leaders to victimise journalists and activists. So many journalists have been prosecuted and jailed for expressing their views. Section 29(1) of the Fundamental Human Rights Act condemns this.

“My worry is that it will not help us in the long run and it will not align with what the old democracy activists and patriotic leaders envisaged in their struggle towards restoring democracy in 1999. Whatever the government can do to protect journalists will help our system and whatever way they bend the law to protect the corrupt will tell on us and the generations to come,” Omeike noted.