Some Nigerians gathering in a field with flags during daytime. Photo by Salem Ochidi. Free to use via unsplash.
This story was produced as part of Dataphyte Foundation’s Digital Rights Reporting Masterclass with support from Spaces for Change. It was first published on Dataphyte.
What began as a Facebook Live video speaking against police brutality spiralled into an ordeal of surveillance and intimidation for Nigerian nurse and activist Abiodun Olamide Thomas.
During the EndSARS memorial in Lagos on October 20, 2024, Thomas decried an alleged police assault and issued blistering condemnations against Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, the Inspector General of Police, and the police spokesperson. She was subsequently arrested.
While recounting the events that followed her live stream in a phone interview, she said an unidentified police officer invited her to Oyo state to respond to a petition. She informed the policeman that she was unable to travel for five hours and that any petition be addressed in Lagos, where she resides.
Shortly after, Thomas started receiving suspicious messages from an individual posing as a fellow activist who invited her for drinks. When the unknown individual could not verify their identity, she declined. Soon after, the surveillance seemingly became physical. She noticed a man trailing her on her way to work. She shared:
By the time I got to Oshodi, I met some market women and started shouting that I suspect this person to be a kidnapper. That’s how the person ran back, and I know it was a security operative.
When direct approaches failed, the police allegedly began targeting those connected to her.
In November 2024, my Facebook friend was arrested. When police could not locate him at the family-owned hotel he managed, they detained his aged mother for hours. Upon turning himself in, his mother was released while he was questioned about my whereabouts, but was released after police determined he did not know her beyond social media.
Despite the illegality of proxy arrests under Nigerian law, Thomas stated that police then targeted her relatives, luring her uncle with a fake business offer. They allegedly forced him to call her and used that information to locate and arrest Thomas herself.
Justice delayed is intimidation served
Thomas’s arrest led to an immediate ordeal in custody. She was initially detained in Lagos before being whisked away to Abuja, the capital, where she was handed over to the cybercrime unit of the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) and later transferred to the Nigeria Police Force Cyber-Crime Centre (NCCC), where she was held for several days and was demanded to issue an apology for the words she uttered in her video.
It was only after strong criticism from the media that the police arraigned her before the court on December 20, where she was remanded at Suleja Custodial Centre.
Her bail application was delayed multiple times, forcing her to spend three weeks in custody, including Christmas Day, her birthday, and New Year’s Day in prison, before she was eventually granted bail in January.
The law and its weaponization
Thomas’s case revolves around the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act. Since it was passed in 2015, civil society groups have voiced concerns that its Section 24 was being misused to intimidate critics and suppress online dissent. The original law criminalized sending messages deemed “grossly offensive, indecent, obscene, menacing, or false” with the intent to cause annoyance, insult, or needless anxiety.
In 2022, the ECOWAS Court of Justice ruled the original Section 24 of the Cybercrime Act to be arbitrary and repressive, prompting the Nigerian government to amend the law in February 2024. The revised version now only criminalises the sending of pornographic content or knowingly false messages intended to cause a breakdown of law and order or pose a threat to life.
While the new law is clearer, the application remains a problem.
As Ibrahim Moshood, a legal practitioner in Ilorin, explains to Global Voices in an interview:
To some reasonable extent, the amendment of the law has addressed the ambiguity and injustice challenged by the ECOWAS court regarding section 24 of the Cybercrime Act. The law has clarified that any pro message sent through an electronic means will not be considered a crime unless it is pornographic in nature. Secondly, unless it is false or it poses a threat to life or breaks the law and order. Those words are straight enough.
Moshood added:
As a lawyer, I know the issue is that there’s a difference between what’s written in the law and what’s applicable. Well, you may get to court and may be able to argue your case, but sometimes law enforcement agencies don’t follow the law. Even when you go to their station despite knowing your right and you tell them this is what is supposed to be done, and they refuse to do it even when they know what you’re saying is right… Despite the clarity of the law, the law enforcement agency, as the prosecuting authority, can still manage their way if they want to be mischievous.
The cases of citizens arrested, such as Thomas, prove this point: the law has a precise definition, but law enforcement agencies still find ways to use it to suppress speech.
According to Moshood, prosecutions over online posts are often a tool of intimidation, not justice. He says the goal is to keep the person in jail for days by delaying bail, even if the case is weak. Once the person has been sufficiently scared, the prosecutors drop the charges because their real mission, making an example of the individual, has already been accomplished.
A pattern of abuse
Thomas’s ordeal is one thread in a larger, restrictive tapestry. With over 107 million internet users, platforms like X, Facebook, and WhatsApp have become essential, making criticisms of powerful individuals and government policies harder to ignore. Authorities, in turn, rely on these restrictive laws to curb online speech.
Chioma Okoli, a small business owner, was arrested and charged with defamation under the Cybercrimes Act after she negatively reviewed a product on Facebook, alleging a tomato purée contained an unhealthy amount of sugar. She was arrested while with her family at church, jailed, and subsequently released on stringent bail terms. This illustrates how the law can be weaponised against even consumer complaints.
This trend is a significant threat to Nigeria’s digital space. The nation scored 59 out of 100 in Freedom House's 2024 Freedom on the Net report, which classifies it as “Partly Free.” This reflects a decline from 2023, driven by ongoing legal prosecutions and extralegal actions against online journalists, which have led to the removal or retraction of critical stories.
Effect on press freedom
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 29 media practitioners have been persecuted under the Cybercrimes Act since its enactment. Post-amendment, at least nine journalists have faced prosecution under the Act, including Fejiro Oliver, who was detained in September and charged with cyberstalking the Delta State governor and a Senator over a series of Facebook posts.
Sodeeq Atanda, an investigative reporter at the Foundation for Investigative Reporting (FIJ), was detained for 11 hours after honouring a police invitation in Ekiti state on September 9, 2025, over a petition alleging conspiracy, criminal defamation, blackmail, malicious misrepresentation, and cyberbullying.
Police pressed Atanda to reveal the sources of a story he wrote exposing the sexual misconduct of Abayomi Fasina, the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), who filed the petition against him. He recalled:
While in custody, the police wanted access to my phone even though the documents I cited as evidence were available online in the report. I believe that it (my detention) is a form of suppression and a way of sending signals to the public, especially whistleblowers, not to speak to journalists. If I had gone there with my phone, I might have been coerced into revealing my sources.
Since FIJ launched in 2021, the organisation said it has faced consistent police harassment. At least three of its reporters, including the founder, have been arrested or detained.
