Global Rights Petitions IGP Over Weaponisation Of Cybercrime Act By Officers

A rights group, Global Rights, has condemned what it described arsenic the persistent and unlawful weaponisation of the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act 2015 against journalists and civic nine personalities successful Nigeria.

In an unfastened missive addressed to the Inspector General of Police Kayode Egbetokun signed by its enforcement director, Abiodun Baiyewu, the rights radical accused officers of the Nigeria Police Force of exploiting the Act, peculiarly Section 24, to bully journalists, suppress dissent and shrink the country’s civic space.

According to Global Rights, a instrumentality promulgated to combat cyber fraud and different harmful online activities has progressively go a instrumentality utilized by constabulary unit to  criminalise defamation and morganatic disapproval of authorities officials.

“Using constabulary powers to criminalise defamation nether the guise of the Cybercrime Act is undemocratic and risks ushering successful wide censorship and repression,” Baiyewu stated.

Citing caller examples, Global Rights recalled the 2024 apprehension of investigative writer Daniel Ojukwu aft helium reported alleged corruption wrong the Presidency, and the detention of Hassan Mai-Waya Kangiwa successful Kebbi State pursuing his study connected neglect astatine Kangiwa General Hospital.

It quoted information from the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) which held that 54 verified cases of property state violations were recorded betwixt January and August 9, 2025, with astir linked to information agencies, peculiarly the police.

Global Rights further stated that that contempt amendments to the Cybercrime Act successful 2024, which narrowed the scope of Section 24, constabulary officers proceed to enforce the instrumentality utilizing the original, broader provisions.

The radical besides referenced the 2022 ruling of the ECOWAS Court of Justice successful SERAP v. Nigeria, which declared Section 24 incompatible with planetary quality rights obligations.

Quoting Section 4 of the Nigeria Police Act 2020, which mandates the constabulary to support citizens’ cardinal rights, the radical urged the IGP to: Issue directives deprioritising arrests and detentions nether Section 24 of the Cybercrime Act; moving with the Ministry of Justice, civilian society, and different stakeholders to draught wide guidelines for implementing the Act and publically affirming the Police Force’s committedness to upholding property freedom, state of expression, and civic rights.

“The incessant harassment and detention of journalists and civic actors by authorities agents, peculiarly the police, is simply a unsafe and anti-democratic inclination that indispensable beryllium reversed,” the radical stated, arsenic it underlined the primacy of protecting property state and civic abstraction arsenic indispensable to strengthening Nigeria’s ideology and enhancing accountability successful governance