One of the biggest news websites in
Nigeria went offline late October and has remained unavailable since. Here I
refer to naij.com, a website that has repeatedly ranked
among the top ten most visited websites in Nigeria for years. I hate to be the
harbinger of bad news but I must inform you that many internet service
providers in Nigeria have knocked Naij and dozens of other websites
off the Nigerian online space for weeks now.
According to available evidence, the
blockade of domain names of Naij and others was at the behest of the federal
government. President Muhammadu Buhari, born-again democrat and lover of free
speech, scored his biggest coup against the media and the country is quiet.
Shutting down naij.com in
Nigeria is on the same level
as stopping Punch from distributing its newspapers in the country. By now, the
whole country would be drowning in a media-induced frenzy on the issue.
How exactly has a democratic government managed to shut down one of the biggest
media houses without setting off the media’s advocacy machine?
This is what we know so far. On November
3, 2017, ITRealms, an online news site, reported that the Federal Government
through the Nigerian Communications Commission ordered a
company (name withheld) to block the domain names of some websites that are
deemed inimical to the Nigeria’s national security. According to
the memo dated October 20, 2017, and signed by Haru Al-Hassan and Yetunde
Akinoloye, the Office of the National Security Adviser prepared the
list of twenty-one erring news sites. The list is a
who-is-who of “pro-Biafran” websites. However, the NSA apparently considers
Naij as pro-Biafra, hence the addition of the online media
juggernaut to the list.
On November 5, 2017, Nigerian Tribune released a report on the development,
essentially corroborating the report of ITRealms. Tribune went a step further
and quoted copiously from the NCC memo. In Tribune report, we learnt that the
NCC issued the directive to telecommunication companies relying on Section 146
of the Nigerian Communications Commission Act 2003 to have the websites
blocked.
Immediately Paradigm Initiative learnt of
this development on November 6, we went to work and ran copious tests on the
domain names of the listed websites. We reached out to a source at Naij and
asked why their website was redirecting us to a new domain name naija.ng. The
source, who is not authorized to speak publicly on the subject, said, “The
website was shut down by the Federal government. We are currently running on
our backup platform- naija.ng”.
It is important to note here that the
implementation of the blockade directive has not been uniform. Testing Naij.com
on November 6 in Lagos via MTN and Swift, we were redirected to naija.ng.
However, since yesterday, November 15, the naija.ng has itself been unavailable
when using Swift in Lagos. As for the other websites on the list, sixteen of
the websites are still available in Abuja via Spectranet as at November 16,
while only three of them are available in Lagos via any of Swift, MTN and
Smile. Others using other service providers in Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt
also have similar observations. Outside this country, all but two of the 21
websites
are online. This means that while internet
users are having issues using these Nigerian websites, others outside the
country are able to use them seamlessly. We encourage readers to also test the websites and
communicate their findings to us via hello@paradigmhq.org (mailto:hello@paradigmhq.org)
We have issued two press statements on
this issue and have since written a Freedom of Information Act request
to the Nigerian Communications Commission. In the request, we asked the Commission
the following questions: Is the Nigeria Communications Commission or any of its
agents in the process of taking steps to block or restrict the domain names of
certain websites? If yes, what websites would be affected? What criteria were
employed in selecting these websites? Under what legal provision is this being
carried out? As at the press time, the Commission has not responded to our
request.
On his part, however, the Honourable
Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu categorically denied any attempt by
the federal government to block the domain names of news sites in Nigeria. This
is what he told Tribune: “I am sure NCC will never ever write such a memo. I am
sure it never happened. President Muhammadu Buhari or any of the people working
for him will never do or encourage anything that will amount to gagging of the
press.” Is it that the Commission is engaging in this censorship activity
without carrying along its supervising ministry? This would not be the first
time a ministry would not be aware of what an agency under it is doing.
It is also possible that the minister was
not being truthful to Tribune. What really matters to us at this point is the
precedent that the Buhari administration is setting by arbitrarily blocking
Nigerians from accessing newssites of their choice. As we have said before,
blocking the domain names of websites is a brazen violation of the right to
Freedom of Expression as guaranteed not only by the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria but also by international instruments to which Nigeria is a
signatory. The Federal government has a duty to protect free speech and not
curtail it.
Unfortunately, the Buhari administration
has not been shy about its ambition to “regulate” free speech. It has
repeatedly pontificated about the danger of hate speech and why online speech
especially must be regulated. President Buhari himself is no stranger to
censorship and media clampdown. When he was Nigeria’s military dictator in the
80s, he promulgated the infamous Decree 4 that saw to the jailing of
journalists and closing down of media houses. Has Buhari changed since 1984 or
does he still see critical speech as dangerous speech that must be fought to a
standstill? The next few days or weeks would tell us.
What does this development mean for
digital rights in Nigeria? If the government can just wake up one day and
restrict access to a website, what does that mean for the digital economy? What
does that mean for democracy and Nigerians’ ability to criticize the government
and mobilise against an administration they do not like?
Does that mean that a website of an
opposition party can be blocked in 2019? Nigerians should ask their government why they cannot
access Nigerian websites that are available for access outside
these shores.
Sodiq Alabi is the communications lead at
Paradigm Initiative, a pan-African digital right and inclusion advocacy
organisation.
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