IN THE PAST several months, a disturbing pattern is slowly unfolding in which politically exposed individuals are becoming increasingly allergic to criticism and utterly contemptuous of the fundamental rights of citizens.
From Kano to Kaduna to Gombe, Jigawa to Niger State, the long arm of the law is being weaponised, not to protect the innocent, but to silence voices perceived as inconvenient.
The Nigeria Police Force, constitutionally mandated to protect the lives and property of citizens, has devolved into a private militia for the politically connected. We are witnessing an era where a Facebook post is treated as a capital offense, where a serving Corps member is detained for expressing an opinion, and where investigative journalists are arrested not for committing crimes, but for exposing them.
Like every journalist, we at NATIONAL RECORD are compelled to ask: What happened to the Nigeria of free speech? What happened to the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression? When a citizen can be harassed, arrested, and detained indefinitely over a social media comment, the social contract between the governed and those who govern is broken.
The serial violations which the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has over time condemned are not isolated incidents of rogue officers but a systemic rot that points to a deliberate state policy of intimidation.
When the Kano State government bans films and arrests youths over Facebook posts, it is not maintaining order; it is enforcing authoritarianism. When the police in Kaduna drag citizens into cells for social media posts, they are not fighting crime; they are fighting democracy. This emerging trend is not only visible in recent trends as shown in Niger, Kaduna, Kano and Jigawa but a manifest national social malaise that crystallised in the #EndSARS Movement.
The shame of this situation does not rest solely on the shoulders of the Inspector-General of Police or the officers who execute these unlawful orders. The blame must be shared by the various arms of government who have watched this descent into darkness with a lukewarm attitude that borders on complicity.
The judiciary, the last hope of the common man, must look inward. How many of these illegally detained citizens are granted prompt hearing? How many are released on bail without the trauma of a police cell? The legislature, the bastion of democracy, remains largely silent, failing to use its oversight powers to rein in a police force that acts with impunity. They speak of national security, yet they ignore the reality that a nation that silences its people has no future to secure.
In the face of this serial tyranny, CITAD has stood as a bulwark against the tide, earning a place in Nigeria’s digital history for its eternal vigilance of the country’s social conscience.
Through an unwavering clamour against, and documentation of, arrests, its legal advocacy for detained social media influencers, and its intellectual pushback against regressive cyber laws, CITAD has become an indisputable champion of free speech.
As the Emir of Jama’are rightly noted, CITAD’s Executive Director, Engr. YZ Ya’u, is a pioneer, not just in ICT, but in the fight for the soul of our democracy. Through CITAD’s tireless effort in speaking out against violations, launching a platform to report abuses, and demanding that digital freedom be codified into our laws remain perhaps the reason these atrocities have not been swept under the carpet of national obscurity.
But vigilance alone is not enough. We cannot allow CITAD to fight this battle alone. As conscious citizens, we must demand sustainable remedies; beginning with a demand for immediate and unconditional release of all citizens – bloggers, activists, journalists, social media influencers – currently in detention for exercising their right to free expression must be released.
The Nigeria Police must therefore be directed by the Presidency to cease the criminalisation of social media commentary. The Attorney-General of the Federation must step in to withdraw frivolous charges filed against critics of the government.
In the medium term, the government must engage in a genuine legislative and institutional reform to ensure that the National Assembly must urgently review the Cybercrimes Act and any proposed digital legislation to align them with international standards of digital rights, as advocated by CITAD.
Furthermore, the Police Act must be amended to include strict sanctions for officers who engage in the political weaponisation of their offices. In doing this, there must be a parliamentary inquiry into the spike in digital rights abuse, with the power to recommend prosecution for erring police officers – whether rank and file, junior and senior personnel.
For a sustained culture of accountability and civic education, Nigeria must invest in a culture of constitutionalism by re-orienting security agencies to understand that their duty is to the constitution, not to the whims of political officeholders. Secondly, Government must partner with civil society organisations for sustained enlightenment of citizens on their rights. When the citizenry is aware, and the police fear consequence, the civic space will expand, not shrink.
Our society must make this a defining moment for our democracy as we cannot continue down this path where the police is made to be a weapon against the people it is meant to secure.
The Government must, therefore, choose between the rule of law and the rule of the thumb, to listen to the call of civility and the conscience of the nation, or continue to silence the very people it was created to serve. Like CITAD, we stand for a Nigeria where the right to speak is not a crime, where free speech is never under siege.
