By Onozure Dania
As Nigeria’s laws are still playing catch-up in a world that has gone digital, lawmakers and digital rights experts are calling for urgent updates to the country’s “analog” laws to protect citizens, safeguard minors, and balance national security with human rights in the online space, writes Onozure Dania
AS Nigeria struggles toward a fully digital future, lawmakers are raising urgent calls to modernise the country’s legal framework to protect citizens online.
At a two-day legislative retreat in Lagos, experts, civil society actors, and federal legislators gathered to chart a path for digital rights laws that balance innovation, security, and human rights.
The retreat, held from November 21–22, 2025, at the Radisson Blu in Ikeja, brought together nearly 20 federal lawmakers, technical experts, and civil society organisations.
Hosted by Paradigm Initiative in partnership with Avocats Sans Frontières France and the Centre for Information Technology and Development, the event aimed to refine and review the reintroduced Digital Rights and Freedoms Bill before it returns to the National Assembly.
Digital reality, analogue laws
Chairman of the Senate Committee on ICT and Cybersecurity, Senator Shuaibu Afolabi, during the retreat, told participants that Nigeria’s legal framework was yet to catch up with its digital reality.
Representing Ogun Central Senatorial District, Afolabi said upcoming laws must protect citizens’ rights, safeguard national security, and shield minors from harmful content online.
“Society has moved digital, while many of our laws remain analog. Our human rights are well defined offline, but there are also rights that must be observed in the digital space,” he said.
At the retreat, he emphasised three key priorities: equipping legislators with knowledge on digital rights, learning from international best practices, particularly the European Union’s regulations on data protection and AI, and engaging stakeholders to strike a balance between citizens’ rights and national security.
Afolabi highlighted the vulnerability of Nigeria’s youth, who make up the bulk of the population with an average age of 16.9 years.
“They know how to use technology more than their parents. Without controls, they are exposed to harmful content that can distort their psyche,” he said, warning that excessive screen time and exposure to inappropriate content have real consequences for children’s development.
Building digital “super highway”
The senator explained that the National Digital Economy and E-Governance Bill, expected to pass soon, will lay the foundation for Nigeria’s digital ecosystem, creating a regulatory “super highway.” The Digital Rights and Online Protection Bill, in turn, will serve as traffic rules, governing how citizens operate within this space and ensuring safeguards are in place.
“You can build a super highway without controls, and everyone drives how they want. The digital economy bill creates the highway; the subsidiary laws regulate how we use it,” he said.
Chairman of the House Committee on ICT and Cybersecurity, Olajide Adedeji, agreed with Afolabi’s concerns, stressing that advancing technology must go hand-in-hand with protecting human rights.
He noted that emerging tools like artificial intelligence and blockchain carry risks, including privacy breaches and potential human rights violations.
“While we want technology to advance, we must consider how to mitigate its risks. There are times when things are legal but unethical, and times when things are unethical but legal. Striking that balance is what we are trying to do here,” Adedeji said.
Updating laws for digital landscape
The retreat also addressed lessons from past legislative attempts. The original Digital Rights Bill, drafted in 2016, passed both chambers in 2019 but did not secure presidential assent.
Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative, Gbenga Sesan, said the updated bill reflects technological realities of 2025, including developments in AI, hate speech, and online expression. Provisions on data protection were removed because Nigeria now has a separate Data Protection Act enacted in 2023.
“Security and rights are not opposites,” Sesan said. “Security cannot exist without trust. Trust cannot exist without justice. Justice cannot exist without rights. In Nigeria, security agencies routinely infringe on citizens’ rights. This must stop.”
Sesan called for the renewal of a comprehensive Digital Rights and Freedom law to secure the rights of its citizens online, stressing that trust in the digital space is central to the $1tn digital economic growth.
Nigeria needs this bill. “A $1tn digital economy relies on trust, and trust relies on the protection of citizens’ rights. We’re here to ensure that the human rights Nigerians enjoy offline are extended to the digital environment,” he said.
The Country Director of Avocats Sans Frontières France, Angela Uzoma-Iwuchukwu, added that digital rights laws must be “forward-looking and rights-respecting,” ensuring that technological innovation does not come at the expense of human rights.
She also urged lawmakers to promote digital empowerment initiatives, particularly for young women, to ensure Nigeria’s youth are innovators, not just consumers of technology.
“Digital rights are simply traditional human rights translated to the digital environment. Freedom of expression online, privacy, inclusion, and non-discrimination must all be safeguarded as innovation grows,” she said.
Collaborative path forward
The retreat reflected a shared recognition that technology’s rapid evolution requires equally agile legal protections.
Jessica Odudu, spokesperson for the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which funded the retreat, noted, “The economy cannot thrive without respected rights. Protecting digital rights enhances democratic values and public trust.”
Khadijah El-Usman, Senior Officer for Programmes at Paradigm Initiative, Anglophone West Africa, highlighted the fragmented nature of Nigeria’s current digital governance.
“The space of digital rights and online protection is currently fragmented and vulnerable. As digital challenges grow more complex, this is the right moment for the National Assembly to strengthen protections for all Nigerians,” she said.
Media Rights Agenda Executive Director, Edetaen Ojo, introduced senators and members of the House of Representatives to the draft bill.
His presentation sought to explain its structure, highlight key provisions, and spark discussions to help lawmakers grasp its objectives before it formally reaches the National Assembly.
According to Ojo, the bill is designed to fill a critical gap in Nigeria’s legal framework by setting out a clear set of digital rights for users that mirror those guaranteed offline but are complicated by the nature of online communication.
“We already have many laws dealing with digital and online issues,” Ojo said. “But most of these are criminal laws prohibiting certain behaviour and prescribing punishments. We don’t really have any framework that protects rights online. This bill is intended to protect human rights in the online environment, consistent with the Constitution and regional and international standards.”
Ojo explained that while traditional rights such as freedom of expression are meant to apply both offline and online, the digital world presents new challenges.
“Offline, you don’t have things like retweets, likes, or shares,” he said. “So when someone claims that you are liable for content simply because you liked or retweeted it, how should that be interpreted? The bill clarifies how traditional rights should function in the digital context.”
He also pointed to the Cybercrimes Act as an example of the legal complexities facing Nigerians online. According to Ojo, acts that would ordinarily be civil matters, like defamation, can be criminalised when they occur on digital platforms.
“Posting an article on a website suddenly becomes cybercrime instead of simply defamation,” he said. “The digital environment gives it a different colouration.”
Ojo acknowledged concerns about Nigeria’s digital literacy levels but stressed that digital rights protections are relevant to all Nigerians who use mobile phones, messaging apps, or video platforms, even those who cannot read or write.
“If someone receives and forwards a WhatsApp message containing unlawful content, even without being literate, they could commit an offence under the Cybercrimes Act,” he said. “The fact that they are using digital tools brings them within the purview of digital rights and cybercrime issues.
One of the resource persons at the legislative retreat, Julian Ringhof, Policy Officer for Global Aspects of Digital Services at the European Commission, presented to the Nigerian lawmakers the European Union outlined new measures to strengthen the online safety of minors, citing rising global exposure of children to harmful digital content.
Ringhof said recent data shows that more than half of young users encounter harmful content and increasingly rely on social media for information.
He highlighted new EU recommendations requiring private-by-default accounts for minors, limits on contact from unknown adults, safer recommender systems, and restrictions on downloading or screenshotting minors’ content.
He also announced that the EU is testing a privacy-preserving age verification system, based on technology used during the COVID-19 digital certificate rollout.
Nigeria’s push for a Digital Rights and Freedom law began nearly a decade ago as human rights organisations, technology experts and lawmakers grew concerned about the widening gap between constitutional rights and the realities of online life.
Although the internet has become central to political expression, business, education and civic engagement, Nigeria lacks a clear legal framework that defines how freedoms such as expression, privacy, association and access to information operate in the digital space.
Over the years, several high-profile incidents have underscored the need for reform. Citizens have been arrested for social media posts criticising public officials, while security agencies have been widely accused of conducting unlawful phone searches and accessing private messages without warrants.
The 2021 suspension of Twitter drew global attention to the vulnerability of online platforms in Nigeria, raising fears about censorship and political interference.
At the same time, the broad provisions of the Cybercrimes Act have often been used to criminalise what would ordinarily be civil matters, such as defamation or online journalism.
These concerns mirror global conversations about digital rights. International frameworks from the United Nations to the African Union affirm that the rights people enjoy offline must also be protected online.
The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, already domesticated in Nigeria, guarantees freedom of expression and privacy, while global standards such as the ICCPR and the AU’s Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression outline clear expectations for digital environments.
Many countries have gone on to develop comprehensive digital rights laws, including Brazil, South Africa, Kenya and members of the European Union.
Onozure Dania
