Two layers, one gap
A 12 September 2026 Daily Trust review argues that the 2024-amended Cybercrimes Act is still being used against journalists and critics. It points to Section 24, which covers cyberstalking and false messages and carries up to three years or N7 million. The paper cites the September 2025 detentions of reporters Sodeeq Atanda and Tega Oghenedoro, the July 2026 remand of freelance journalist Stanley Ugagbe, and the Federal Government's September 2025 suit against Omoyele Sowore and the owners of X and Facebook. The NUJ, the Nigerian Guild of Editors, SERAP and HURIWA want the National Assembly to review the Act.
On 13 February 2026 the Nigerian Communications Commission added a second layer by publishing its Internet Code of Practice 2026. Online speech in Nigeria is now governed by a criminal statute enforced by police and by a telecom-regulator code enforced by the NCC. Each has a defensible purpose. Each leaves too little room for independent review.
The case for the state's position
The strongest argument for both regimes is practical. Nigerians face real online fraud, harassment and incitement, and platforms headquartered abroad have historically been slow to answer Nigerian complaints. A regulator that can reach a platform within a day, and a criminal law that can reach a harasser, address a genuine enforcement gap. The 2024 amendment was itself a response to criticism, and some lawyers say it improved on the 2015 text. A 2024 academic study cited in legal commentary finds the revised provisions improve protection of expression, though not fully.
That case deserves a fair hearing. It does not answer the question of who decides what counts as false, annoying or harmful, and how quickly that decision can be challenged.
The criminal law: a pattern, not an anecdote
The problem with Section 24 is less its text than how it is used. An ICIR investigation catalogues cases from 2019 to 2026. In most of them, a person named in a story, often an official or a businessperson, filed a complaint, and the reporter was detained. Several cases were later struck out or ended in acquittal. Agba Jalingo, for example, was acquitted in his cybercrime case on 8 July 2024 after months in detention in 2019. In those cases the process was the punishment.
The IDEA Democracy Tracker reports that the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development counts at least 18 journalists targeted under cybercrime charges since the 2024 amendment. That is a civil society count, but it is consistent with the cases documented elsewhere.
The courts have not settled the matter. On 25 March 2022 the ECOWAS Court ruled that Section 24 of the original Act was incompatible with Article 9 of the African Charter and Article 19 of the ICCPR, and ordered Nigeria to amend it. When SERAP challenged the amended Act (ECW/CCJ/APP/03/25), the ECOWAS Court dismissed the application. It held that media reports and hyperlinks, without sworn statements or judicial records, did not prove arbitrary application. It also said it does not conduct abstract review of national law. The dismissal was on evidence, not on the merits of the statute, and it shows what a challenger must now bring: case files, not press clippings.
Commentators also disagree on where the N7 million and three-year penalty sits. Femi Falana has argued that the amendment removed the cyberstalking wording and moved the false-message offence elsewhere in the Act. Daily Trust ties the penalty to Section 24. When reporters cannot tell which provision they might be charged under, the law is not giving fair notice.
The regulatory layer: speed without appeal
The NCC code is less discussed but may matter more to platforms. As summarised by BusinessDay, it requires takedown notices to be complied with within 24 hours, obliges platforms to adopt community rules aligned with Section 146 of the NCC Act and file them with the Commission, and requires each platform to name a focal person to deal with the NCC's Designated Online Governance Officer. Platforms must also file biannual compliance reports, with sanctions possible once enforcement begins. I could not read the code's full text in a machine-readable form, so these points rest on that secondary summary and the NCC's published page; readers should check the PDF for the precise duties. Reports also differ on the exact commencement dates, which is itself a compliance problem for platforms.
The design risk is familiar from other jurisdictions. A 24-hour clock with sanctions behind it pushes platforms to remove anything a regulator flags, because wrongful removal costs a platform little and non-compliance costs it a lot. Community-rules filing gives a telecom regulator a view into private moderation policy that it was never built to supervise. The code offers affected persons an appeal, but the route runs back to the same regulator.
What proportionate reform looks like
The two layers compound each other. A takedown notice can remove a story that a complainant also reports to police, and a founder or reporter then faces both. Chilled speech here is not hypothetical, and the cost falls on the open, lively Nigerian internet that supports its creators, startups and newsrooms.
Three changes would address the real harms without the collateral damage:
- Pass the tabled reform. The House gave first reading on 22 April 2026 to a bill that would narrow Section 24, move reputation and falsehood disputes to civil proceedings, shield public-interest journalism and require judicial authorisation for data access, according to IDEA. It still needs a second reading, committee work, passage and assent.
- Put a judge before the takedown. Orders beyond clearly illegal material such as child abuse imagery or credible threats should come from a court, or at least be reviewable by one on a fast track.
- Publish the numbers. The NCC and the police should report how many takedown notices and Section 24 complaints they issue, and how many end in conviction. Without those figures, neither side can test its claims.
Nigeria can pursue fraudsters and harassers without making complaints from the powerful a route to a cell. The first reading is a start, and the National Assembly should give the bill a date for its second reading.