Civic Pulse Nigeria
Quarterly civic space report
Q3 2022
July to September 2022
Complete quarter. Generated 19 Sept 2026.
- Published records
- 4
- Change on Q2 2022
- +1
- States named
- 2
- Reporting organisations
- 4
4 civic space records were published for July to September 2022, against 3 in April to June 2022. Arrests and Detention was the most frequently recorded category. 2 of these came from reports written at national level that name no state.
Records by category
- Arrests & Detention2
- Legal & Regulatory2
- Citizen Engagement0
- Government Discourse0
- Resource Access0
- Harassment0
Where records were located
- Federal Capital Territory1
- Lagos1
Plus 2 national-level records naming no state.
Who reported these incidents
- Rights monitors
- 3
- News outlets
- 1
- Official and court records
- 0
- Channels Television1
- Committee to Protect Journalists1
- Media Foundation for West Africa1
- SERAP1
The records
- 19 Aug 2022·Lagos·CPN-0084
Nigerian journalist Agba Jalingo detained over defamation, cyberattack complaint
Police arrested Agba Jalingo, publisher of CrossRiverWatch, at his home in Ogudu, Lagos on 19 August 2022 over a defamation and cyberattack complaint by Elizabeth Frank Ayade, sister-in-law of Cross River State Governor Benedict Ayade. Jalingo had been charged with terrorism and treasonable felony in 2019 over reporting on the governor; those charges were dismissed in March 2022.
- Committee to Protect Journalists: https://cpj.org/2022/08/nigerian-journalist-agba-jalingo-detained-over-defamation-cyberattack-complaint/
- 3 Aug 2022·National·CPN-0085
NBC fines DStv, Trust TV, StarTimes and others over documentary on bandits
The National Broadcasting Commission fined Trust TV N5 million over its documentary Nigeria's Banditry: The Inside Story, and fined MultiChoice (DStv), TelCom Satellite (TStv) and NTA-StarTimes N5 million each for airing the BBC Africa Eye documentary Bandits Warlords of Zamfara, saying the films glorified bandits and undermined national security. The BBC said it stood by its report.
- 25 Jul 2022·Federal Capital Territory·CPN-0086
Nigerian authorities raid Peoples Gazette newspaper again, arrest editor and journalists
On 22 July 2022 police raided the headquarters of the Peoples Gazette news website in Utako, Abuja and arrested assistant managing editor John Adenekan, journalists Ameedat Adeyemi and Samuel Ogbu, and administrative staff Grace Oke and Justina Tayani. The officers said they were acting on a petition by former army chief Tukur Buratai over a story about cash and luxury items recovered from his property.
- Media Foundation for West Africa: https://mfwa.org/nigerian-authorities-raid-peoples-gazette-newspaper-again-arrests-editor-journalists/
- 14 Jul 2022·National·CPN-0087
ECOWAS Court declares Twitter ban unlawful, orders government not to repeat it
The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice declared Nigeria's seven-month suspension of Twitter unlawful, finding that it violated freedom of expression and access to media under the African Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It ordered the government not to repeat similar acts and to bear the costs. The suit was brought by SERAP and 176 Nigerians; access to Twitter had been restored in January 2022.
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.