On Tuesday, December 10, 2024, Nigeria joined the rest of the world to mark the International Human Rights Day. It is a day set aside by the United Nations to mark the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UDHR, which outlines the rights of everyone as a human being. The UDHR frowns at discrimination based on race, colour, religion, gender, language, etc.

The theme for this year’s celebration was “Our Rights, Our Future, Right Now.” In commemorating the day in Nigeria, the Nigeria Guild of Editors, NGE, and a civil rights group, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, issued a statement decrying the state of human rights violation in the country.

A statement jointly signed by SERAP and NGE regrets that despite almost 25 years of unbroken democratic rule in the Fourth Republic, unlawful detentions, disappearances, malicious prosecutions, wrongful use of legislation and law enforcement, press gagging, clampdown on media freedom, state censorship of media, utter control of state-owned media houses and other infractions on human rights have continued.

We commend the NGE and SERAP for calling attention to this draconian situation in Nigeria which appears to be worsening under this present administration. The two groups listed 110 attacks recorded between the first and third quarters of this year, making it higher than the entire 2023 record. This is unacceptable.

We would all recall that Nigeria’s return to democratic governance was as a result of the valiant fights and efforts of the media and the people who stood against military dictatorship. It is a sad commentary on the part of the government that the media and the people are being suppressed under the same democracy they fought to enthrone.

Without freedom of speech and of lawful protest, democracy will die. Sadly, more journalists appear to have been arrested, molested or detained under this present administration than under any other government in this Fourth Republic. This cannot be tolerated in a country where the current president had enjoyed the support of the media and the people as an opposition leader.

Government must desist from using security agencies to harass journalists and other innocent citizens who are exercising their rights to dissent.

Government must also cease from using the flawed Cybercrimes Act of 2015 and the unjust criminal defamation under the Criminal Code Act to persecute and restrict the rights of journalists and innocent citizens.

We also call on the National Assembly to take another look at some of these laws, amend or abolish them completely because they have no place under a democracy.