In 2025, make Nigeria safe and equitable for all

There is a slang now used by Nigerians across social media platforms, something that is both a warning and prayer. They say, ‘may Nigeria not happen to you’. Or, ‘let Nigeria not happen to you.’

What they mean is that Nigeria has transformed into a mere geographical space with capacity to afflict, disorient and shatter aspirations. Therefore, fellow citizens beware. It is an expression of anguish and frustration at the state’s repeated failure to protect life and property.

For instance, hundreds and thousands of citizens have abandoned their homelands for years because of the activities of terrorists. They now live in camps meant for internally displaced persons (IDPs), with their original life aspirations and destinies brutally re-arranged and distorted. Nigeria happened to them.

Some schoolgirls were abducted from their boarding house more than a decade ago in Chibok, Borno State. Many of them were forcefully acquired as sex slaves to raise children for terrorists, no longer able to pursue their childhood dream of better life through education. Those of them who managed to return after years of savage living in the camps of religious lunatics in Sambisa Forest present devalued and tortured forms, misused and mentally disfigured. They are barely useful to themselves. Another example of how Nigeria happened to citizens.

Today, hundreds and thousands of youths are just floating, unsure of what tomorrow would be, their yesterday and today stolen and mortgaged by older generations. Some youths have spent decades after university education and are yet to hit the ground. They survive on menial jobs and handouts. Some Nigerians are homeless and others do not have enough to cover their accommodation for the next one year.

Many parents are struggling with payment of school fees for their wards. Others are barely able to feed. Yet, as we speak, some are gathering money to pay ransoms to kidnappers, just as hundreds and thousands are unable to pay hospital bills and keep pace with prices of prescription drugs. Nigeria has happened to citizens in different forms.

Nigeria is currently happening to citizen Abiodun Thomas, who has been the guest of the police since December 13, 2024, for ‘cursing’ the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, the Force PRO, Olumuyiwa Adejobi and Seyi, son of President Tinubu. She spent the last Christmas in detention as well as the New Year holiday. If her bail application is not well argued today, she might remain a guest of the state for more days.

She was arrested in Lagos, transferred to Abuja and swiftly arraigned at the Federal High Court on December 20. According to reports, she was arrested and charged over some video recording on her social media platform, where she allegedly rained ‘curses’ at Tinubu, the IGP and the Force Spokesperson. Thomas’ remarks were said to be intended to “bully, threaten, harass” Egbetokun, Adejobi and Tinubu, an offence punishable under Section 24(2) (a) Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention and other offences (Amendment Act, 2024).

Among Thomas’ social media peers, Nigeria has happened to her. She had made a video, where she thought she had exercised her freedom of free speech. But here is the state determining otherwise. While some lawyers argue that there may be no offence in ordinary cursing, the Cybercrimes Act has provided that it might be a crime to use the social media malevolently.

The law determines that the sending of indecent and grossly offensive messages via a computer system as well as communication that are false, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, insult or needless anxiety to another person amount to forms of crime.

Indeed, the social media space is loose and very accommodating of citizens’ excesses. However, many have feared that a portion of the law conflicts with the constitutional right of the press to at all times be free to demand accountability and responsibility from government.

Despite a recent amendment, the law is found to remain nebulous and could be a tool in the hands of law enforcers to hamper and incriminate sincere and harmless communication.

Media groups and the Editors’ guild are insisting that the cybercrimes law is open to misuse in the hands of politicians and their law enforcers who are wired to assume that they were created to protect the political class alone.

Journalists have been hounded and abducted in locations across the country for alleged cybercrime offences. In the case of Daniel Ojukwu, a journalist with the Foundation for Investigative Journalists (FIJ), he was arrested on May 1, 2024, in Lagos and later taken to Abuja. He had investigated a government contract that appeared suspicious and ought to have been commended by government. There were other arrests, but the police always have their justification.

On December 6, the police slammed Dele Farotimi, activist and lawyer with a 12-count charge bordering on cybercrime offences. He was accused of intentionally transmitting communication which he knew to be false information “for the purpose of causing breakdown of law and order, thereby committing an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 24(1)(b) of Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention and other offences) Act…”

Apart from its affront to free speech, there is the concern that the Cybercrimes Act is being selectively applied to harass and intimidate ordinary citizens. For instance, the minister in charge of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has used the social media more than the likes of Abiodun Thomas, to bully, threaten and harass.

Wike threatened to set fire to states superintended by governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), if they dared to recognise Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State. Videos of the threat were shared across social media platforms and they caused panic and confusion across the PDP states.

Wike had severally bullied and harassed the Senator representing the FCT, Ireti Kingibe, on the social media. The recordings are all over the place. Wike’s social media activities are legendary. We are not aware that the police have invited Wike to explain the endless verbal missiles he has hauled at citizens across space and time. Instead, President Tinubu gives him a pat on the back.

Media managers in this government and their social media commentators regularly make mincemeat of the personality of Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, for example. Their day is not fulfilled if they had not inconvenienced, bullied and needlessly drag Obi for exercising his right to offer alternate policy ideas as leader of opposition.

Were Nigeria to operate a parliamentary system, Obi would have been an MP, daily slugging it out with the government on the floor of the House, demanding explanation and suggesting different and legitimate opinions on behalf of more than six million voters who believed in him.

The dexterity deployed by the police in tracking activist Thomas, the nifty mobilisation of resources to transport the suspect to Abuja as well as her speedy arraignment are all commendable. It shows a new level of efficiency that must be recommended for other situations that require same attention.

A Nigerian, referred to as Father Nonso, came into the country in December, to celebrate Christmas with family and friends. He was kidnapped. According to the report, Nonso was taken on December 17, and had to spend a week with his hosts in the forest. Father Obimma, identified as the Spiritual Director of Holy Ghost Adoration Ministry, Uke, Anambra State, who narrated the incident lamented that he had to pay the police N1 million to rescue the colleague. According to him, after one week, he decided to lead the rescue operation, since the police told him they lacked logistics to embark on the rescue.

Father Obimma said; “For a week, Fr. Nonso was in the hands of kidnappers. Government could not do anything. It got to a point where I had to use my arsenal to rescue him. when they saw that I was serious, that was when the police told me I should not worry, that they could rescue him, just that they lacked logistics. I had to send N1 million to them…”

The Police Command said it has ordered an investigation of Father Obimma’s allegations. Let the outcome of the investigation be made public.

Last December, a family in Ogun State was reportedly asked by the police to part with N40,000 in a case of missing seven-year-old girl. The money was to report the case and track the suspected kidnappers’ phone. Police Spokesperson, Adejobi intervened in the matter, calling the action of the policemen, “inhuman, apathetic and unprofessional.” He announced that those who demanded money had been arrested for disciplinary action.

Highly commendable. But the fact of the matter is whether there is now regular funding for the police to track phones and do cyber investigations at the Divisional level? We are not unmindful of the fact that the police never have enough resources, as there are reports of lack of writing materials to record cases at most police stations.

This morning, thousands of prospective Corp members are going to scamper to log into the NYSC portal to be part of the next orientation camp. It is a scramble because there is a backlog awaiting call up, more like a game of chance. Some will be dispatched to difficult terrains where terrorists, bandits and unknown gunmen are in charge.

We’ve lost count of the number of Corp members who have spent weeks and months in kidnappers’ den. Their parents are often abandoned to suffer avoidable torture and trauma. Let the government be up and doing, so that innocent Nigerians do not suffer harm needlessly.

We cannot forget the Corps members who were murdered in Bauchi during the 2011 presidential elections. They were drafted to serve their fatherland, then Nigeria happened to them. The parents were handed some token for their years of toil and investment.

Let the government and its agencies cause Nigeria to happen to citizens in positive ways.