The Director General,
Department of State Services (DSS)
Nigeria
Re: Civil society statement on DSS takedown demands to social media platforms
We, the undersigned civil society organisations, write to express our concerns regarding the letters dated September 6 and 7, 2025, from Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS) to X Corp and Meta, respectively, demanding the immediate removal of certain posts deemed critical of the Nigerian President.
These demands represent a troubling escalation in the misuse of cybercrime and anti-terrorism legislation by Nigerian authorities to silence legitimate political discourse. The invocation of such serious legal frameworks against ordinary political commentary creates a dangerous chilling effect on freedom of expression, not only for the individuals directly targeted but for all Nigerians who seek to engage in democratic debate and hold the government accountable.
Misrepresentation and misapplication of Nigerian Criminal Law
We are deeply concerned about the misrepresentation and misapplication of several provisions of law, including Section 51 of the Criminal Code Act, Cap 77 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990, Section 2 (3) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act as amended 2022, and Sections 19, 22, and 24 of the “Cybercrime Act of 2025”.
Section 51 of the Criminal Code Act has been misrepresented as prohibiting the publication of false information. In reality, Section 51 provides the punishment for the crime of sedition. Similar to criminal defamation and other “insult offenses”, sedition is regarded under international human rights law as antithetical to democratic values and freedom of expression. In the case of Arthur Nwankwo V State, (1985) 6NCLR 228, the Court of Appeal set aside a conviction under Section 51 of the Criminal Code on the grounds that the provision was unconstitutional and held that a law criminalising speech can amount to a restriction on the constitutional right to freedom of expression. Further, the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (“ECOWAS Court”) has established that sedition laws undermine free expression within the spirit of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which recognise, among others, the rights to freedom of expression, opinion and access to information. International human rights law recognizes that the right to freedom of expression includes the right to criticize government officials and policies, with the European Court of Human Rights noting that “the limits of acceptable criticism are accordingly wider as regards a politician as such than as regards a private individual”. Further, the UN Human Rights Committee in General Comment No.34, which guides the interpretation of Article 19(3) of the ICCPR, has explicitly called for the decriminalisation of defamation and other insult offences, yet authorities in Nigeria continue to invoke these unconstitutional colonial and military era provisions to criminalise legitimate political discourse and silence critics.
We are also concerned by the reference to offences punishable under the “Cyber Crimes Act 2025” as no such Act exists under Nigerian Law. Nigeria’s extant cybercrime legislation is the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act, 2015 as amended 2024 (the “Cybercrimes Act 2024”). Sections 19 and 22 of the Cybercrimes Act 2024 contain provisions specifically related to the conduct of financial institutions and their employees under the Act. Section 19 covers counter-fraud measures to be applied by financial institutions regarding employee “posting” and “authorising access” while Section 22 contains provisions on abuse of special knowledge and identity theft/impersonation by employees of financial institutions. Neither of these provisions contains any speech-related offences or any other offences relevant to the cited publication. Importantly, in 2022, in the matter of the Registered Trustees of the Socio-Economic & Accountability Project (SERAP) and the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which challenged the legality and compatibility of the provisions of the Cybercrime Act 2015 with international human rights law, the ECOWAS Court found the provisions of Section 24 of the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act, 2015, to be incompatible with international human rights standards. Under international human rights law, any restriction on freedom of expression must meet the three-part test of legality, legitimacy, necessity, and proportionality. For a restriction to meet the test of legality, it must be formulated in a clear and precise manner, allowing individuals to foresee the consequences of their actions and regulate their conduct accordingly.
According to the ECOWAS Court’s ruling in that case, the provision failed the test of legality as the Act failed to define the parameters or elements of the crime that it typified, thereby infringing on the rights to freedom of expression, information and opinion in contravention of Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The ECOWAS Court ordered the Nigerian government to amend this law and bring it into conformity with international human rights standards. In direct contravention of the ECOWAS ruling, the 2024 amendments failed to properly correct the defects in this law, retaining certain vague and ambiguous provisions that were cited in the ECOWAS court’s ruling. This law is currently back before the ECOWAS court, where it is being challenged by human rights organisations on these same grounds. Notwithstanding the foregoing, it is imperative to state that the 2024 amendment expressly excluded from Section 24, much of the language contained in the 2015 law, including references to “content that is rude, vulgar, offensive or indecent… with the intent to embarrass or humiliate others”, contrary to the claim contained in the takedown order to X Corp. We are concerned, therefore, that the basis of this takedown order amounts to the enforcement of a repealed law, contrary to principles of fairness, due process, and the rule of law.
Furthermore, Section 2(3) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022 does not contain any prohibitions, but rather provides definitions for “acts of terrorism” under the law. The invocation of terrorism legislation against legitimate political criticism constitutes a dangerous overreach that contradicts both the letter and spirit of counter-terrorism laws. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism has warned against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation to silence legitimate dissent, emphasising that such laws must not be employed to suppress criticism of government officials or policies. The characterization of political commentary as terrorism not only lacks any legal basis but also undermines the serious nature of genuine terrorism offenses.
Concerns about threatened retaliatory actions for platform’s non-compliance with the takedown orders
We are also concerned about the DSS’s stated intention to take ‘far-reaching, sweeping and across-the-board measures for the platforms’ non-compliance with the takedown order. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) require companies to respect human rights and prevent adverse human rights impacts resulting from their operations, while state actors have a duty to protect human rights. The DSS’s content take down order is not only unlawful, it violates the right to freedom of expression and the right to information and hinders companies from carrying out their responsibility to respect those rights. While states often position trusted flagger relationships as key to mitigating illegal content, digital rights advocates have warned that in practice, they often create room for governments to exert undue influence on platforms in order to silence dissent. This is made much worse when law enforcement assistance requirements do not include judicial oversight, as is the case in Section 40 of the Cybercrimes Act 2024. Additionally, holding social media companies criminally liable for user-generated content violates their safe harbor protections, which has an impact on users’ rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the right to privacy.
Finally, we refer the DSS to the 2022 judgement of the ECOWAS court in the case of ‘The Registered Trustees of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) (Suing for & on behalf of concerned Nigerians) and The Federal Republic of Nigeria’ which declared the blocking of X (then Twitter) from July 2021 to January 2022 illegal. In that ruling, the ECOWAS court, among other substantial declarations, ordered the Federal Government of Nigeria to refrain from blocking X in the future. Thus, any “far-reaching, sweeping and across-the-board measure” intended by the DSS in response to the platforms’ non-compliance with the takedown orders, which results in any restriction to the platform or limitation of the ability of people to access the platform from Nigeria, will be in violation of the ECOWAS court’s ruling.
We, the undersigned organisations, therefore demand that the Department of State Services (DSS):
- Rescind the content takedown orders issued to X or any other social media platform and refrain from exploiting companies’ content moderation systems to stifle legitimate political discourse and dissent.
- Issue a public retraction of the DSS’s stated intention to take ‘far-reaching, sweeping and across-the-board measures’ in response to platforms’ non-compliance and publicly reaffirm the government’s commitment to uphold the rule of law and comply with the 2022 ECOWAS order prohibiting platform blocking.
- Create publicly accessible transparency reporting on content removal requests issued to social media companies, including information on the categories of content, legal basis for these requests, and the judicial orders (if any) accompanying these requests.
- Refrain from enforcing laws on sedition, false information, defamation, and other similarly vague or overbroad provisions that criminalize legitimate expression and are incompatible with international human rights law.
- Publicly respond to the serious issues raised in this letter and make a statement to assure the people of Nigeria that access to X, Facebook, and other social media platforms will remain unrestricted in the country in line with the government’s human rights obligations.
Signatories
- Access Now
- Human Rights Journalists Network Nigeria
- Paradigm Initiative (PIN)
- West African Digital Rights Defenders Coalition