Nigeria’s cybercrime reforms leave journalists at risk | Cybercrime

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…