EDITORIAL: Safeguarding press freedom in Nigeria

The year ends on Wednesday, with Nigeria earning the infamy of being “one of the most dangerous countries for journalists” according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The indices in this regard are overwhelming. A recent press freedom index released by RSF, showing the country as having dropped from its 115 ranking in 2024, to 122 out of 180 countries in 2025, is quite troubling.

Sadly, press freedom is often mistakenly treated as a stand-alone right, detached from the broader ecosystem of freedom of expression that gives it meaning and vitality. Yet, a free press can only thrive where citizens are able to speak, question authority, assemble, dissent, and participate openly in public life. Recognising this interdependence, the 2024 Openness Index developed by Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) offers a more rigorous framework for understanding press violations, not as isolated incidents but as symptoms of deeper democratic deficits.

The Index demonstrates that when openness shrinks — through political intolerance, restrictive laws, economic pressures, social hostility, or violence against journalists — the space for ideas and accountability collapses, elections become performative, and governance turns opaque. By assessing Nigerian states across seven interconnected dimensions, including political tolerance, legal safeguards, treatment of journalists, and gender inclusion, the Openness Index provides an evidence-based pathway for reform.

It shifts the focus from reactive condemnation of abuses to proactive diagnosis of structural weaknesses, enabling policymakers, media actors, civil society, and citizens to identify where freedoms are flourishing, where they are fragile, and where urgent intervention is required. In doing so, the Index reframes press freedom as both a mirror and a measure of freedom of expression itself — central to democratic health, responsive governance, and the restoration of public trust.

Nevertheless, even using the limited data of press violations from organisations like RSF alone, it is adequate to pronounce that such a shameful categorisation of the abuse in the country does not align with the expectations of a democracy, which Nigeria has been in the past 26 years. This concern informed the decision of the International Press Institute (IPI) to address the issues of media repression and safeguarding democratic accountability in Nigeria as the focus of its recent Annual Conference in Abuja, held early in December.

There is an avalanche of determined efforts by governments at the federal and sub-national levels to cripple press freedom in the country through the constant harassment, intimidation and detention of journalists. These are done with the police acting as a willing tool of corrupt politicians, compromised public institutions and other agents of social perversion. A recurring trend has been the exploitation of the Cybercrime Act, criminal defamation legislation and other subversive legal frameworks to perpetrate this evil.

Journalists are not the only direct victims of this violence. Their family members are known to suffer collateral damage too. The most recent example was the cruelty of the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun’s Monitoring Unit in the arrest and detention of Mrs Adenike Atanda and her nine-month-old baby, in its bid to apprehend her husband, Sodeeq, a senior reporter with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ). The action of the police was unlawful, as arrest by proxy violates Section 7 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2025.

Sodeeq’s offence was an investigative report he did, which was not controverted. Hell-bent on getting their target, the police officers coerced Adenike into calling her husband under the false pretext that their child was ill and had been hospitalised. Understandably, Sodeeq fell for this bait, and he was promptly arrested in Ikorodu. It took the intervention of IPI for IGP Egbetokun to order the release of the journalist on 23 December.

The case of Friday Alefia, who was detained for 86 days at the behest of a member of the House of Representatives over alleged land grabbing, is no less reprehensible. To avoid sleeping close to the toilet in the cell, Alefia had to pay ₦170, 000 for a relatively “comfortable” space. Journalist and human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore, is a regular victim of unfortunate police harassment, brutality and prosecution.

In its 129-page report released on 3 November and entitled, “When Protectors Become Predatory: The State Against Freedom of Expression in Nigeria”, Media Rights Agenda documented 69 verified cases of journalist arrests and intimidation in the first 10 months of 2025, stressing that 74 per cent of this maltreatment was carried out by government officials.

As the watchdog of the society, a fettered press bodes ill for democracy. Section 22 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, confers on the press the power to hold government accountable to the people. A government that is not willing to subject itself to this constitutional requirement must have skeletons in its cupboard or is a rogue regime.

Unfortunately, this statutory responsibility is gradually being eroded by violence meted out to the media. When investigative journalism is being criminalised by the state and there are “no firm safeguards to protect press freedom” journalists’ then resort to self-censorship, fear and the abdication of their sacred duties, thus making themselves craven and useless to society.

The Nigerian press, having been in the vanguard of the fight against colonial rule and operating in the trenches against military dictatorship for decades, must not capitulate to repressive tendencies under the Tinubu administration. Therefore, the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), International Press Institute (Nigerian chapter), Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) and other civic media organisations working in the ecosystem of freedom of expression must rally into granite coalition to deal with this existential challenge. The monstrosity is likely to become more vicious in 2026 – an electioneering period ahead of 2027, when politicians would unleash malevolent forces against elements that stand in their way.

In this regard, we commend the IPI for its resolutions at the end of its Annual General Meeting in Abuja, which called for safeguards to protect the freedom of the press beyond mere rhetoric. The novelty of launching a “Book of Infamy,” in which it enrolled IGP Egbetokun, Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago of Niger State and his Akwa Ibom State counterpart, Umo Eno, for their acts of intimidation and repression of journalists and media outlets is ingenious, although we would call for caution in promoting security sector leaders as models of media freedom. The strategy should be embraced by the Nigerian press, to “name and shame” public officers who operate outside the framework of the law.

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The August 2024 nation-wide hunger protest that stemmed from the escalating cost of living perhaps was Mr Egbetokun’s darkest moment in charge of the police. More than 30 journalists were either fired live bullets at, arrested or assaulted. Cameras of photo-journalists were smashed, and in some cases, seized as they covered the crisis. A cowed media, needless to say, succumbs to the government agenda of shrinking the civic space in the demand for accountability in governance. This should be resisted as strongly as possible in our country!

It is obvious that a democracy without freedom of the press is an anomaly. So fundamental is this to a democratic society that it was enshrined in the Bill of Rights in the First Amendment to the American Constitution. In addition to this, essential tenets such as free speech, religious freedom, the right to peaceful assembly, etc., are crucial guardrails of an open society.

As such, the media in Nigeria should act in concert and put forward a strong advocacy that closes all the loopholes in our laws, which the police exploit to harass and intimidate journalists, while investing in continuous accountability journalism, and legally challenging abuses that abridge their rights to function, as enabled by the constitution.