Cyber Law is a Tool For State Repression and Attacks on Democratic Rights
In Nigeria today, cyber law has become one of the sharpest weapons in the hands of the ruling class against the people. Under the pretext of regulating online behaviour and combating cyber crime, the state has built a legal and security architecture whose real function is to criminalise dissent and protect elite power.
By Francis Nwapa National Secretary, Youth Rights Campaign (YRC)
This is not an accident. It is an expected outcome of a socio-economic system that serves a tiny minority while excluding the vast majority from real power. In such a system, freedom of expression becomes dangerous, because it can lead to exposure, mobilisation, and resistance.
Socialists and genuine activists do not support cyberstalking and cyber-bullying. But a reasonable response to it should be to discourage it through mass campaign and not through state repression, intimidation and attacks on democratic rights. Besides, it should not be made a criminal offence. It is a civil matter. Anybody including government officials who believe they are at the receiving end of cyberbullying or cyberstalking must only seek redress through civil action and not through the abusive use of security operatives or judicial process.
The fact is that state is not neutral. Its laws, courts, and security agencies exist primarily to defend the economic and political interests of the ruling elite. Cyber laws in Nigeria function exactly in this way. The vaguely worded provisions on “cyberstalking,” “false information,” and “online harassment” allow the state to arrest activists who mobilise protests, journalists who expose corruption, workers and youths who criticise failed policies, ordinary citizens who speak angrily about hunger, insecurity, and injustice. Meanwhile, large-scale corruption, looting of public funds, and economic violence against millions go unpunished. Cyber law is not about safety; it is about control of narratives.
Therefore, journalists are arrested or detained for investigative reporting. Protest organisers are tracked and charged for online mobilisation. Social media users are threatened into silence.
Fear and self-censorship replace political debate. This creates a chilling effect. It may force ordinary people to withdraw from public discussion not because they agree with the policies of the government, but because they are afraid. A society where people are afraid to speak is not stable, mass anger is merely suppressed. It could boil over later to a mass uprising. Digital or cyber repression is therefore not separate from economic suffering. Rather, cyber law is like a padlock on an exploitative system that cannot survive open criticism.
WHAT MUST BE DONE?
Ending digital repression requires mass democratic action. The working class, youths, students, and professionals must understand that cyber repression is not about morality or “online behaviour. Journalists, activists, workers, traders, and students must reject isolation. An attack on one voice is an attack on all. When arrests happen, they must be met with public solidarity, collective outrage and organised pressure. Peaceful mass protests, strikes, boycotts, and coordinated online campaigns are necessary to force accountability and push back against fear-driven governance. We call on trade unions, media and civil society organisations to initiate a series of mass actions including mass protest to reject cyber laws.
Ultimately, cyber repression is rooted in a socio-economy and political system that prioritises super profit and elite comfort over human needs and dignity. A system that produces mass poverty cannot tolerate mass expression. Ending repression therefore requires a fundamental redistribution of power — political, economic, and social, from the few to the vast majority. Achieving this requires a mass party of the working masses and the poor, which is based on socialist program, to wrest political power from the thieving capitalist elite.
YRC email: [email protected]