In December 2024, Destiny Ekhorutomuen, a TikToker from Edo State, was arrested for allegedly using multiple social media accounts to spread “false and inciting content” against the Nigeria Police Force. He was formally charged with cyberbullying and cyberstalking under the Cybercrimes Act. Bail was set at 2 billion naira, approximately $1.3 million USD, requiring four sureties including two Federal Government workers on Level 16 with Abuja properties valued at ₦500 million each, and two businessmen with similar property holdings. Legal experts condemned the arrest, citing it as an example of suppressing free speech & criticized the bail conditions as excessive.

In 2024, Dele Farotimi, a lawyer and public commentator, published a book alleging corruption in Nigeria’s judiciary. He was subsequently charged with 12 counts of cybercrime, detained in Lagos, transported across state lines to Ekiti, and brought to court in handcuffs. The charges were eventually withdrawn, but the message was very clear: speak, and you will pay a price. This has been a continuous pattern.

What Is the Cybercrimes Act?

The Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc.) Act was signed into law in 2015 with a legitimate purpose, to combat online fraud, hacking, identity theft, and cyberterrorism. Nigeria, like many countries, needed a legal framework to address the growing reality of digital crime.

This law designed to fight cyber criminals has, over the years, been consistently used against different kinds of persons entirely: journalists, activists, bloggers, and ordinary Nigerian citizens who criticised the government or powerful individuals online. The primary vehicle for this misuse is Section 24 of the Act, which criminalises messages deemed to cause “annoyance,” “inconvenience,” or a “breakdown of law and order.” The language is broad, vague, and in the hands of the wrong authorities, almost infinitely elastic.

The Numbers Tell the Story

The evidence of misuse is not anecdotal, it is documented. In 2024, attacks on journalists in Nigeria surpassed every figure recorded the year before. The CJID Press Attack Tracker documented over 135 incidents of physical attacks, arbitrary arrests, and harassment against journalists, underscoring what has become a dangerously hostile environment for media freedom.  The Nigeria Police Force is  responsible for nearly 48% of documented incidents, according to Media Rights Agenda’s 2025 Annual Report on Freedom of Expression, titled “The Reign of Impunity.” That report, covering the full year of 2025, documented 86 separate incidents of violations of media freedom and freedom of expression across 27 states and the FCT. Not one case resulted in the successful prosecution of a perpetrator.

Reporters Without Borders has described Nigeria as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists in West Africa. In 2025, Nigeria dropped 10 spots to rank 122nd out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index, a decline directly linked to the weaponisation of the Cybercrimes Act and the broader culture of impunity around press attacks.

Amended But Not Fixed

In February 2024, President Bola Tinubu signed amendments to the Cybercrimes Act, narrowing the definition of cyberstalking under Section 24. Civil society organisations acknowledged the amendment as a step forward, but they also noted clearly that it did not go far enough.

Despite the reform, at least eight journalists have since been wrongfully arrested, prosecuted, or detained under the amended law, according to Reporters Without Borders. In November 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists documented that at least three journalists had been detained since August of that year on cybercrime allegations, with an  investigative journalist Fejiro Oliver, remaining behind bars for weeks because he could not meet the bail conditions set by the court.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) itself raised concerns about the Act in an advisory opinion, warning that it has potentials for abuse, particularly with respect to arrest and prosecution of Activists, journalists, bloggers and ordinary social media users. As far back as 2022, the ECOWAS Court of Justice ruled that the Act was not in conformity with Nigeria’s obligations under the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The problem is not just the law, but is the culture around it.

Who Bears the Cost

It is worth being specific about who is actually being targeted.

Journalists reporting on corruption, Bloggers who criticise politicians, Activists who organise online, a TikToker who made a video the police did not like, a lawyer who wrote a book e.t.c 

These are not threats to national security, they are people exercising rights that the Nigerian Constitution, in Section 39, explicitly guarantees: the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.

The misuse of the Cybercrimes Act does not just harm the individuals arrested. It produces something arguably more dangerous: self-censorship. When journalists remove stories under legal pressure, when bloggers hesitate before publishing, when ordinary citizens weigh whether a post is worth the risk, the space for public discourse quietly contracts. The law does not need to silence everyone. It only needs to silence enough people to make the rest afraid.

What Needs to Change

The conversation around the Cybercrimes Act cannot remain in legal circles. It belongs in every newsroom, every civil society organisation, every classroom where young Nigerians are learning what it means to be a citizen.

Three things are clear. First, the Cybercrimes Act must be further reformed. Section 24 and related provisions that have been consistently used to target expression must be rewritten with precision, ensuring that the law targets genuine harm rather than inconvenient speech.

Second, accountability for perpetrators of press freedom violations must come to life. The “Reign of Impunity” is not a metaphor, it is a documented reality, one that will not change until there are actual consequences for security officers and officials who weaponise the law.

Third, the Human Rights Defenders Bill, currently moving through Nigeria’s legislative process, must be passed. It represents one of the most concrete opportunities in years to formalise legal protections for the people doing the work of holding power to account.

At Hope Behind Bars Africa, we are actively working on research into Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) and the legal mechanisms being used to silence civic actors in Nigeria. The Cybercrimes Act sits squarely within this conversation. Free expression is a condition under which every other right becomes possible.

A society that jails people for tweets is not protecting its citizens, it is protecting its abuses.