Nigerian President Tinubu says ransoms will no longer be paid to kidnappers who have made the crime a business in the West African nation. He made the declaration during the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the kidnapping of 276 school girls from the town of Chibok in the country's northern region.
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The officers treated journalist Saint Mienpamo Onitsha as if he was violent and dangerous. Guns drawn, they arrested him at the home of a friend, drove him to the local police station in Nigeria’s southern Bayelsa State, and then flew him to the national capital, Abuja.
A week later, they charged Onitsha under the country’s 2015 Cybercrimes Act and detained him over his reporting about tensions in the oil-rich Niger Delta region. This was in October 2023. He was released on bail in early February and is due to appear before a court on June 4.
The Cybercrimes Act is tragically familiar to Nigeria’s media community. Since its enactment, at least 25 journalists have faced prosecution under the law, including four arrested earlier this year. Anande Terungwa, a lawyer for Onitsha, described the law to me as a tool misused to “hunt journalists”.
For years, media and human rights groups had been calling for the act to be amended to prevent its misuse as a tool for censorship and intimidation. Then, in November last year, Nigeria’s Senate proposed amendments and held a public hearing to help shape changes. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), alongside other civil society and press groups, submitted recommended reforms.
On February 28, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu signed amendments to the act, including revisions to a section criminalising expression online, according to a copy of the law shared with me by Yahaya Danzaria, the clerk of Nigeria’s House of Representatives. The changes, which have yet to be published in the government gazette, have buoyed hopes for improved press freedom, but the law continues to leave journalists at risk of arrest and surveillance.
“It’s better, but it’s definitely not where we want it to be,” Khadijah El-Usman, senior programs officer with the Nigeria-based digital rights group Paradigm Initiative, told me in a phone interview about the amended law. “There are still provisions that can be taken advantage of, especially by those in power.”
One of the primary concerns has been Section 24 of the law, which defines the crime of “cyberstalking”. It is this section that authorities repeatedly used to charge journalists, and it is one of the sections that was amended.
Under the previous version of the law, Section 24 criminalised the use of a computer to send messages deemed “grossly offensive, pornographic or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character”, and punished such offences with up to three years in prison and a fine. The same punishment applied for sending knowingly false messages “for the purpose of causing annoyance” or “needless anxiety”. In practice, this meant journalists risked jail time based on highly subjective interpretations of online reporting.
The amended version maintains the heavy penalty, but refines the offence as computer messages that are pornographic or knowingly false, “for the purpose of causing a breakdown of law and order, posing a threat to life, or causing such messages to be sent”. While the narrower language is welcome, the possibility for abuse remains.
“It could have been more specific in wording,” Solomon Okedara, a Lagos-based digital rights lawyer, told me after reviewing the amended section. He said it was an improvement because the burden of proof to bring charges is higher, but still leaves room for authorities to make arrests on claims that certain reporting has caused a “breakdown of law and order”.
It remains to be seen exactly how these changes will affect the cases of journalists and others previously charged under now-amended sections. “It is now for the lawyers to use,” Danzaria explained. “You cannot use an old law to prosecute somebody…if [the case] is ongoing, the new law supersedes whatever was in place.”
For Onitsha’s case, Terungwa said he would seek to incorporate the amendments into his defence in court. CPJ continues to call for authorities to drop all criminal prosecutions of journalists in connection with their work.
Another issue with the law – even after the recent amendments – is how it may permit surveillance abuses. Section 38 of Nigeria’s Cybercrimes Act fails to explicitly require law enforcement to obtain a court-issued warrant before accessing “traffic data” and “subscriber information” from service providers. This oversight gap is particularly concerning given how Nigeria’s police have used journalists’ call data to track and arrest them.
“I’m looking towards a future cybercrimes act that respects human rights,” El-Usman emphasised, noting the need for laws that guard against abuses, not just in Nigeria, but across the region. From Mali to Benin to Zimbabwe, authorities have used cybercrime laws and digital codes to arrest reporters for their work. Journalists’ privacy is also broadly under threat.
Jonathan Rozen, Al Jazeera
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Nestle Nigeria, a subsidiary of Nestle, a global food and beverage company, has denied adding sugar to its products sold in Nigeria, insisting it is not violating the global guidelines for infant formulas.
This was contained in a statement issued on Thursday and shared with PREMIUM TIMES by the company’s Head of Corporate Communications, Victoria Uwadoka.
Nestle Nigeria, a subsidiary of the Swiss-based multinational company, said it complies with the global requirements on the usage of sugar and supplies quality products to every part of the world.
The company’s statement is in response to an earlier inquiry by PREMIUM TIMES on the development. Ms Uwadoka had requested that a mail be sent by our reporter and pledged a response as soon as possible, saying she was far away from the office.
Denial
The statement counters the findings of a recent investigation, which revealed that Nestle had been selling substandard infant food products to Nigeria and other low and middle-income countries.
The investigation, carried out by the Public Eye, a Swiss investigative organisation, in collaboration with the International Baby Food Action Network, revealed that Nestle provides its best quality to Europe and other developed nations but supplies substandard products to low- and middle-income countries across the world.
“For Nestlé, not all babies are equal when it comes to added sugar,” the report said.
Samples of Nestle’s baby food products sold in Asia, Africa, and Latin America were sent to Belgium for laboratory testing.
PREMIUM TIMES had reported some of the findings which significantly involved Nigeria.
Sugar in Nigeria Cerelac
Traces of sugar, such as sucrose or honey, were found in samples of Cerelac, a cereal for children between six months and two years old, and Nido, a follow-up milk formula brand intended for infants at least one year old.
Reacting to these claims, Nestle Nigeria said the multinational company provided the same nutrition, health, and wellness principles everywhere in the world.
According to the company, Cerelac may have slight variations in recipes worldwide.
It also said, “In Europe, Nestlé’s range of cereals comes with and without added sugars.
“ Like everywhere in the world, in Nigeria, we do not add sugars (sucrose and glucose) to Infant formula for children aged 0-12 months.
It said, “These principles are aligned with both international and local guidelines, noting that baby formulas in Nigeria for children 0-12 do not add sugar contents. Nigeria, our Growing Up Milk have no added sugars.
“Our milk and cereals for young children are fortified with vitamins and minerals such as iron to help tackle malnutrition.”
High sugar in Nigeria’s Cerelac
Cerelac from Nigeria had the second-highest sugar content, with 6.8g per serving. The country closely follows the Philippines, which has 7.3g.
The report said, “On average, our analysis found almost 4 grams per serving or about one sugar cube.”
Nigeria was ranked 7th out of 10 countries with high sugar content in Nido. According to the report, samples from Nigeria and Senegal, ranked 8th, had 0.6g.
The highest sugar content was found in Panama samples, at 5.3g per serving. Then came Nicaragua 4.7g; Mexico 1.8g; Costa Rica 1.6g; South Africa 0.9g; and Indonesia 0.7g.
By Beloved John, Premium Times
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He aims to play for 58 consecutive hours and raise $1m (£805,000) for charity in the process.
The money, he says, will support chess education for millions of children.
Hundreds of supporters have shown up to cheer on the chess master, including Nigerian Afrobeats star Davido.
The Nigerian community in New York has rallied behind their compatriot, providing Mr Onakoya with music and energising him with supplies of classic Nigerian dishes, including the beloved national staple, jollof rice.
Back home in Nigeria, people are throwing their support behind Onakoya as they watch him try to conquer the record on Twitch, a video-streaming service.
"Mr Onakoya is a symbol of excellence and resilience that distinguish Nigerians both at home and abroad... Go, make history, and inscribe our name in gold," Nigeria's Vice-President Kashim Shettima posted on X.
"Lagos is rooting for you," Lagos state governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu told Onakoya, adding that his attempt was "a powerful testament to how greatness can emerge from anywhere".
By 03:00 on Friday New York time (07:00 GMT), Mr Onakoya had played for 39 hours and raised more than $42,000.
After crossing the halfway point, he said achieving the record was "looking possible now".
He is set to play until at least 20:00 New York time on Friday, which will see him clock 58 hours and surpass the world record, recognised by Guinness World records, of 56 hours, nine minutes, and 37 seconds, which was set by Norwegian duo Hallvard Haug Flatebø and Sjur Ferkingstad in 2018.
Mr Onakoya, 29, credits chess with saving him from the overwhelming poverty he faced growing up in Lagos's infamous floating slums.
His NGO, Chess in Slums Africa, teaches children from poor communities chess and helping them with their education.
Mr Onakoya is also a board member of the US non-profit The Gift of Chess, which works to transform lives through chess and is targeting to distribute one million chess sets to underserved communities by 2030.
By Gloria Aradi, BBC
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Lydia Simon was rescued in Gwoza council area, about 95 miles (150km) east of Chibok, from where 276 schoolgirls were seized in April 2014. As many as 82 are still missing a decade after the high-profile mass kidnapping.
Announcing the news on Thursday, the Nigerian army did not give details of the rescue other than to say Simon was found in the community of Ngoshe.
Chibok and Ngoshe are in Borno state, birthplace of the 15-year old insurgency that has since spread to neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger, uprooting about 2 million people across the region.
The army statement said Simon was five months pregnant. It was accompanied by a picture of her and her three children born in captivity, who appear to be between the ages of two and four. She has yet to be reunited with her family.
The Chibok abduction was the first of a series of mass school kidnappings in Nigeria, shocking the world and triggering a global social media campaign tagged #BringBackOurGirls. Ten years on, many of the abductees, now adults, have been freed or escaped, but jihadist groups and bandits continue to target schools for mass abductions.
Since the Chibok attack, more than 2,190 students have been kidnapped, according to the Lagos-based geopolitical risk consultancy SBM Intelligence. It said mass abductions had become “an increasingly favourite sport for Nigeria’s teeming armed groups”.
As many as 57 of the women from Chibok escaped in the hours after their kidnapping by jumping off the trucks used to abduct them. In May 2017, 82 others were released after the government reportedly paid million-dollar ransoms. Those who returned in recent years were mostly found abandoned in the forests.
Some Chibok parents and security analysts have said there is little evidence to show there is a special military operation to free the remaining women. It is not known if they are all still alive.
Some of the recently freed women were either raped by the insurgents or forced into marriages, according to Chioma Agwuegbo, an activist who was part of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign.
“We have heard their stories about the amount of trauma and violence they have faced. Somebody who was kidnapped 10 years ago is not returning as the same person,” Agwuegbo told Associated Press.
The cause has largely been forgotten by many of the politicians and celebrities who championed it. On 14 April, the anniversary of the abduction, the local activist collective that began the campaign and held rallies for years in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, said it was still seeking justice for the missing women after “this decade of shame”.
Simon’s rescue was symbolic of the enduring hope that pervaded her home town, said the Abuja-based analyst Idayat Hassan, a non-resident fellow with the Africa programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
“It’s symbolic that 10 years after, we still got another of the girls,” Hassan said. “It keeps our hope alive.”
Simon’s family are waiting to be reunited with their long-lost relative, as are the villagers of Chibok.
“The government has not told us anything [and] we are waiting for an official call,” said Yakubu Nkeki, the chair of the Chibok girls’ parents’ association.
By Eromo Egbejule, The Guardian
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