A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Femi Falana, has declared the arrest of journalists for cyberstalking by security agencies as illegal.
This was contained in a statement made available to newsmen on Friday.
According to the statement, Falana said section 24 of the Cybercrime Act 2015 which had criminalised ‘cyberstalking’, ‘insult’, ‘causing annoyance’, ‘sending offensive messages’, ‘criminal intimidation’, and ‘causing annoyance’, had been repealed.
The statement added that the amendment to the law was made by the National Assembly and signed into law by President Bola Tinubu in February 2024.
The human rights lawyer noted that the law was amended following legal actions taken against the federal government.
“In line with both judgments of the ECOWAS court, the government of Nigeria has repealed section 24 by removing the provisions relating to ‘cyberstalking’, ‘insult’, ‘causing annoyance’, ‘sending offensive messages’, and ‘criminal intimidation’ from the cybercrimes act 2015 and replaced same with section 5 of the cybercrime amendment act which provides as follows;
“‘Any person who knowingly or intentionally sends a message or other matter by means of computer systems or network that is – (a) Pornographic: or…
“(b) He knows to be false, for the purpose of causing a breakdown of law and order, posting a threat to life or causing such a message to be sent commits an offence under this Act and shall be liable on conviction to a fine of not more than N7,000,000.00 or imprisonment for a term of not more than 3 years or to both such fine and imprisonment.
“From the foregoing, it is crystal clear that the Police and other security agencies lack the power to arrest, detain and prosecute Nigerian citizens for the so-called offences of ‘cyberstalking’, ‘insult’, ‘causing annoyance’, ‘sending offensive messages’, and ‘criminal intimidation’.
“Consequently, all pending cases filed on the basis of the repealed aspects of section 24 of the cybercrime act 2015 should be discontinued without any further delay,” the statement added.
Recall that Daniel Ojukwu, a journalist with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism last week regained his freedom after spending nine days in police custody for allegedly violating the Cybercrime Act.