Is Nigeria’s Cybercrimes Act Being Misused?

Before September last year, Chioma Okoli, a businesswoman in Lagos, Nigeria, was an avid Facebook user. With a bio that reveals her involvement in import and export as well as business coaching, her timeline was filled with business advice, fliers advertising her import and export masterclasses, and occasional birthday wishes and reflections on her personal life. That all changed on September 17 – after she posted a review of a tinned tomato paste made by Nigerian food manufacturer Erisco Foods Limited.

The fallout that Okoli, who uses Egodi as her last name on social media, has received since posting that review is indicative of the ways in which those in power can manipulate legislation to bully and harass people who they say are spreading misinformation, legal experts say.

In her since-deleted review, Okoli said the can of Erisco Food tomatoes she’d bought had too much of a sugary taste; she asked her fellow Facebook users if they had used the brand and if so, what they thought of it. The review quickly garnered significant attention, reaching the management of Erisco Foods. In a move that many concerned Nigerians have described as an oppressive exercise of power, they contacted the police and petitioned the inspector general, Kayode Egbetokun, calling for the arrest of Okoli.

Although she was released on bail shortly after, the case is still on, six months later. It has thrust Okoli into the national limelight, and also called into question Nigeria’s Cybercrimes Act — the law under which Okoli is being charged — and how it is currently being utilized to quell free speech and freedom of expression.

Mired in Uncertainty

Umeofia believes Okoli’s review was “defamatory content.” He has alleged that after his company conducted an internal investigation into Okoli’s claims, they didn’t find any formal complaint from her; he also questioned the legitimacy of her claims, alleging that she wasn’t able to provide specific product details in her Facebook post. Erisco Foods also announced plans to sue Okoli for ₦5 billion, citing significant reputational damage as the reason. While Umeofia had initially insisted on a settlement, which included a public apology that she did not make, the Nigerian police last month decided to continue going after Okoli, and charged her under the Cybercrimes Act, saying she had violated parts of it – "particularly those that are related to the proper use of cyberspace,” said police spokesperson Olumuyiwa Adejobi.

The police force also accused people who were fundraising to help Okoli cover her legal expenses as forces influencing the decision of the case, urging donations to cease.

For many Nigerians and legal experts, the utilization of the Cybercrimes Act in this instance is at once oppressive and unnecessary. “The way the company has gone about this, as well as the Nigerian police, has been irresponsible, to say the least,” Ridwan Oke, a Nigerian lawyer who has been studying this case and has been involved in other Cybercrimes Act cases in the past, tells OkayAfrica. “I have never seen that kind of thing before. You’re clamping down on a citizen that exercised her rights to freedom of expression and you’re still making attempts to ensure she doesn’t have money to pay for legal representation.”

This week, a group of protesters staged a solidarity walk where they made a stop at the offices of Erisco Foods in the Ikeja area of Lagos state, demanding that the charges against Okoli be dropped.

What the Act Provides

Passed in 2015, the Cybercrimes Act was created to help address cybercrime activities in Nigeria. While parts of the bill help guide cybercrime enforcement, a section of the bill has prompted calls for reform — the very section that's been used against Okoli. Legal experts have criticized section 24(1) of the act, for its express subjectivity and openness to interpretation.

Oke says the Cybercrimes Act has been severely misused. “The Cybercrimes Act is the instrument citizens now use to oppress each other. Any small misunderstanding online, they file petitions claiming cyberbullying or cyberstalking just to punish each other. And the police are always a willing tool in this regard,” he says.

Under this act, journalists, too, have been arrested for publishing stories. In August 2022, Agba Jalingo, the publisher of the Cross River Watch, was detained for allegedly publishing false news that caused “annoyance, ill-will, and insult.” He was later released on a ₦500,000 ($314) bail.

Fejiro Oliver was arrested in 2017 and appeared in court in 2020 after years of adjourning court procedures for violating the Cybercrimes Act, after he published a story accusing Nigerian financial institution, Sterling Bank of corruption.

Even students are not exempt from being charged under this act. In 2022, Aminu Mohammed a student at the Federal University, Dutse, was allegedly arrested on the orders of the former First Lady of Nigeria Aisha Buhari following a tweet Mohammed posted saying Buhari was feeding off of poor people’s money in the country. His tweet, initially written in Hausa read, “Mama has fed fat on poor people’s money.”

According to friends, he had made the post in reaction to the ongoing university strike at the time. Mohammed was charged to court for “cyberstalking,” and was initially denied bail after he pleaded not guilty to the charges. The Department of State Services picked him up and he was driven to the Presidential Villa where it is alleged that he was beaten, assaulted and humiliated by the police. His case was withdrawn by the First Lady later that year.

Legal experts have decried the government’s aversion to free speech, another instance being the Twitter (now known as X) ban of 2022 – a platform that served as a gathering space for movements such as the #EndSars protests. Okoli’s case in particular could have disastrous implications for consumer rights and how the Cybercrimes Act will continue to be enforced.

Oke, like many other legal experts and human rights advocates, believes that section 24 of the Cybercrimes Act needs to be removed to better protect the rights of citizens, as many of its provisions go against sections of the Nigerian constitution. “It’s a direct affront to freedom of expression and it is too wide and untamed,” he says. Amnesty Nigeria, too, expressed its concern over the use of the law and how Okoli has been treated.

These days, Okoli’s Facebook timeline is quieter, the bright, bubbly voice replaced with somber details of her ongoing case; her arrest at an event where she had been invited to speak for instance, and an extensive press statement by her lawyer Inibehe Effiong detailing the police’s overruling of the court order that protected Okoli from being rearrested. The simple details of her life she used to share are no longer updated, her timeline now sits still, inactive since January. The post pinned to her profile is from January 4, and in it, she has a long post reintroducing herself and attached at the bottom of it is a picture of her smiling. It is the only recent post that echoes back to her former self.