MY REFLECTIONS AT THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DIGITAL RIGHTS 2026 IN ABUJA

I had the privilege today Thursday, 29 January 2026 of sharing the stage at Sheraton Hotels [Abuja Continental Hotel] with the dynamic Aisha Yesufu, Executive Director and Founder of Citizen’s Hub, as we participated as panelists at the ongoing National Conference on Digital Rights [funded by the European Union].

Themed “Advancing Digital Rights: Fortifying Governance, Expanding Access, and Safeguarding Civic Freedom in a Digital Society,” our panel discussion was titled “Digital Surveillance and Freedom of Expression Online: Silent Signals – The Chilling Effect of Digital Surveillance on Citizen Voices and Reporting.”

The session was both enlightening and thought-provoking, and I found myself deeply inspired by the powerful presence and insights of Aisha Yesufu. Her passion is a true catalyst for change.

Alongside Aisha, the panel included Edeatan Ojo, Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda, and Kabir Yusuf, a distinguished journalist with Premium Times.

Below, I have reproduced the key points from my interventions during the discussion:

Chinedu Agu, you are one of the outstanding successes of the e-Rights project’s legal aid intervention. You were arrested by Imo State government on 23 September 2025 and detained at the X-Squad Unit of the Imo State Police Command for a comment you made on Facebook criticising bad governance in Imo State. You were denied bail and remanded in the Custodial Centre until 21st October 2025, thereby spending 28 days in detention. Can you take us briefly inside that experience? Beyond the physical detention, how has that 28-day ordeal influenced the way you perceive and approach online expression today?”

Thank you, Busola. What happened to me was not just detention, it was a message. A message designed to intimidate, silence, and serve as a warning to others.

My “crime” was a Facebook post; a comparative civic opinion. I compared developments in Enugu with those in Owerri and stated, as a citizen and lawyer, that Imo was lagging behind. That single act of expression led to my arrest, denial of bail, and 28 days in detention at the X-Squad Unit of the police and the Custodial Centre at Owerri.

I was arrested by the X-Squad Unit of the Imo State Police Command headed by a lawyer and Assistant Commissioner of Police, Linus Nwaiwu, and detained without clothes in a sleazy, smelly, stinking, sticky and mosquito-infested police cell for 2 days before I was arraigned on 25 September 2025. For some inexplicable reasons, it rained for those 2 nights I was in the police cell, and when I demanded for my clothes to shield myself from cold, I was told that the ACP instructed specifically the cell guards that I should not be allowed to have my clothes on. This broke me because every other cell mate had their clothes on.

On 25 September 2025, I was arraigned before His Worship Obinna Njemanze of the Owerri Magistrate Court, who upon his appointment as a Deputy Registrar sometime in the middle of that year, suspended sitting to concentrate more on administrative duties. He refused to be persuaded by the plethora of judicial authorities cited by my legal team, which supported my bail, including Enwere vs State, and denied me bail. Then, relying on the application for remand made by the prosecution, he remanded me in the prison custody and adjourned the matter to 30th October, without recourse to s. 226 of the ACJL of Imo State which recommends that adjournment in such circumstances shall not exceed 14 days. This was either a manifestation of the poor knowledge of the law [which is dangerous for a judicial officer] or demonstration of an executive instruction.

My legal team approached the Federal High Court for my bail. The prosecution did not challenge this bail application. But bizarrely, the honourable court, Coram Hon. Justice Chituru Joy Wigwe-Oreh propounded a new jurisprudence when she ruled that she would not grant me bail because the state had not filed any information before her; this is despite the fact that the charge sheet at the Magistrate Court formed part of the exhibits in my bail application. So, that bail application was denied, and I remained in the prison for 28 days.

Inside detention, I quickly realised something profound: the state no longer needs mass arrests to silence society; it only needs a few symbolic arrests. Once people see one person punished for speech, thousands self-censor.

Psychologically, detention breaks more than the body; it attacks your sense of safety, dignity, and predictability. You begin to understand that the digital space is no longer a free civic square; it is a monitored space, a criminalised space, and a weaponised space.

Now, to the second limb of the question: How has it changed my relationship with online expression? I am still vocal, but now more strategic, more legally conscious, and more structurally aware. Not because I accept repression, but because resistance must evolve.

Today, I no longer see digital expression as mere speech. I see it as: evidence, risk exposure, surveillance data, and a legal battleground.

The chilling effect is real not because people lack courage but because the cost of courage has been deliberately made unbearable.

Yet paradoxically, the detention strengthened my resolve. Because when a state fears a Facebook post, it is proof that speech still has power.

Based on your experience and legal practice, can you help pinpoint specific legal loopholes that allow state governments to bypass constitutional rights and engage in surveillance and invasion of citizens’ rights to privacy?

Yes, and this is a very important question. The problem in Nigeria is not the absence of constitutional rights. The problem is the architecture of abuse built around those rights.

Some of the key legal loopholes I can identify include:

1. The Cybercrimes Act as a Surveillance Tool;

2. Weak Judicial Oversight Mechanisms;

3. Federalism Abuse; and

4. Judicial Timidity and Complicity.

1. The Cybercrime Act as a Surveillance Tool

The Cybercrimes Act was originally framed as a crime-control law, it has become a speech-policing instrument, especially with reference to cyberstalking provisions, false information clauses, and vague harm thresholds.

It enables criminalisation of expression without clear harm standards. That Act should be amended, especially s. 24.

2. Weak Judicial Oversight Mechanisms

The weak judicial oversight mechanism contributes immensely to the successful bypass of citizens’ constitutional rights by state governments.

It is unfortunate that in most jurisdictions, judicial officers collude with police to abuse remand proceedings as provided in sections. 293 – 299 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015. In most jurisdictions I am familiar with, there is this abject abuse of detention order, remand order and remand proceedures.

It’s sad to find judicial officers in some jurisdictions signing detention orders even without proper applications or colluding with police officers to sign remand orders even without arraignment. It’s sad to see that Remand proceedings are skewed to satisfy the whims of an oppressor state government that has indicated interest in a matter before the court in a sense that statutory provisions are abandoned to the detriment of a defendant who has been marked for damnation.

Some judicial officers need to understand that when a defendant asks for bail, he does not ask to be discharged or acquitted. Judicial officers should also not allow state governments to use detention as a tool of punishment.

Judicial officers ought to identify SLAPP cases, and exercise their jurisdiction to grant bail in deserving circumstances. What we see everyday is a situation of the police colluding with an oppressor, maliciously charging a defendant with offences over which the Magistrate lacks jurisdiction just to secure remand as punishment. Judicial officers must be courageous enough to not collude with police or oppressors to refuse bail in such circumstances.

As recently as last week, I experienced a court expressing malicious reluctance in granting bail to accused persons who were arraigned for the first time in December 2025, after being in police custody in Tigerbase Unit of Imo State police since October 2023, placing reliance on the worn-out cliché, “this is a capital offence.”

The ACJL provides for monthly inspection of detention facilities by a Chief Magistrate, a visit in which the Chief Magistrate grants bail to detainees in deserving cases. This is rather obeyed in breach.

3. Federalism Abuse

State governments misuse federal security structures to pursue local political interests, turning federal agencies into political enforcement tools.

So constitutionally, rights exist but structurally, the enforcement ecosystem is compromised.

Surveillance thrives not because it is legal,

but because accountability mechanisms are weak, fragmented, and politically captured.

4. Judicial Timidity and Complicity.

In most jurisdictions, the executive arm of government has, over time, conquered and captured the judiciary, such that it may now, rather than the judicial arm of government, be fittingly described as the judicutive arm. Reduced to little more than an appendage of the executive, it is compelled to go cap in hand, to flatter and compromise, in order to secure appointments, promotions, and elevations.

In situations such as this, the judiciary becomes only but a brush on the executive canvas.

It is a profound institutional disgrace that, in practice, the executive routinely dictates who is granted bail, which matters are assigned to which judicial officer, how long a defendant languishes in detention, and even when bail may finally be dispensed. This craven judicial timidity has not merely enabled executive overreach; it has actively collaborated in it, allowing the executive arm to bypass citizens’ constitutional rights with impunity, all under the hollow pretense of due process.

And like I have said before at a similar panel at the NBA-SPIDEL Conference in December 2025, is the judiciary willing to do this but not able, then it is impotent. Is it able but not willing, then it is malevolent. Is it both able and willing, then why should the government continually succeed in their quest to bypass the constitutional rights of citizens.

What can we learn from the legal victory in your case (including the international advocacy efforts by eRights Project and NBA)? Can that kind of intervention be scaled to increase access to digital rights defense for more citizens?”

Yes , and this is where hope lives. My case teaches us three critical lessons:

1. Law Alone Is Not Enough;

2. Speed Is Protection; and

3. Collective defence works

Legal defence must be combined with civic advocacy, media visibility, international attention and institutional pressure, like was demonstrated in my case.

eRIGHTS Project, NBA, civil society, and international actors created a protective visibility shield in my case. Let me take out time to thank the NBA, NBA-SPIDEL, ASF-France, RULAAC, Amnesty International, CEHRAWS, etc, for their roles in amplifying and giving international visibility to my case. I specifically appreciate ASF-France for their intervention and escalating the matter to ECOWAS Court who shall commence hearing on the application soon.

That visibility saved my life, my liberty, and my dignity.

2. Speed Is Protection

Rapid legal response matters. Silence enables abuse.

Delay legitimises repression. Early intervention disrupts impunity.

3. Collective defence works

When repression becomes collective concern, it becomes politically costly.

The question is, Can it be scaled? The answer is, Yes, but it requires institutionalisation, not heroism.

We need:

Digital Rights Rapid Response Units;

Legal Defence Networks;

Surveillance Litigation Funds;

Pro bono digital rights panels;

Emergency response protocols for activists and journalists; and

Cross-border advocacy partnerships

Digital rights defence must become systemic, not accidental.

The reason is because repression is already systemic. If we don’t build defence systems, we will keep producing isolated survivors instead of protected citizens.

The future of digital freedom will not depend on courage alone, it will depend on structures, networks, law, solidarity, and strategy.

And that is the real lesson of my case. Thank you.

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