Civic Pulse Nigeria
Quarterly civic space report
Q2 2021
April to June 2021
Complete quarter. Generated 19 Sept 2026.
- Published records
- 3
- Change on Q1 2021
- +1
- States named
- 1
- Reporting organisations
- 3
3 civic space records were published for April to June 2021, against 2 in January to March 2021. Citizen Engagement and Policy Influence was the most frequently recorded category. 2 of these came from reports written at national level that name no state.
Records by category
- Citizen Engagement1
- Legal & Regulatory1
- Harassment1
- Arrests & Detention0
- Government Discourse0
- Resource Access0
Where records were located
- Kano1
Plus 2 national-level records naming no state.
Who reported these incidents
- Rights monitors
- 2
- News outlets
- 1
- Official and court records
- 0
- Al Jazeera1
- Committee to Protect Journalists1
- Human Rights Watch1
The records
- 12 Jun 2021·National·CPN-0097
Nigeria: police fire tear gas in Democracy Day protests
Police fired tear gas to disperse anti-government protesters in Lagos and Abuja on Democracy Day, 12 June 2021, after activists called nationwide protests over insecurity, governance and the Twitter ban. AFP reporters saw people detained and journalists were harassed by security forces in Abuja; Abuja police said they made no arrests.
- 7 Jun 2021·National·CPN-0098
Nigeria's Twitter ban follows pattern of repression
On 4 June 2021 the Minister of Information and Culture announced an indefinite suspension of Twitter's operations in Nigeria, citing use of the platform for activities capable of undermining Nigeria's corporate existence. It followed Twitter's deletion of a post by President Muhammadu Buhari. Rights groups described the suspension as an unjustified restriction on freedom of expression and access to information.
- 19 Apr 2021·Kano·CPN-0099
Police summon Daily Nigerian publisher Jaafar Jaafar following governor's threat
Police summoned Daily Nigerian publisher Jaafar Jaafar to appear on 19 April 2021 over alleged criminal conspiracy, defamation, injurious falsehood and inciting violence. The summons followed a 19 March 2021 BBC Hausa interview in which Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said he planned to deal with the journalists behind a 2018 series of videos alleging he had received bribes. Jaafar went into hiding.
- Committee to Protect Journalists: https://cpj.org/2021/04/police-summon-daily-nigerian-publisher-jaafar-jaafar-following-governors-threat/
How this report was compiled
Every record in this report is compiled by hand from reports published by named rights monitors, news outlets and official bodies, and links to the source it draws on. Each record is dated to the incident where its source gives that date, and otherwise to the date the source was published. The figures show what has been recorded, not the full extent of what has happened: incidents that were never reported do not appear, and a state with few records is not necessarily a state where little took place.