DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE AND SOCIAL
JUSTICE IN NIGERIA: A STUDY OF NEW
MEDIA REGULATIONS
Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement of De Montfort University for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy by Ere, Amapamoere Jennifer September 2020
1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I give glory to God Almighty for guiding me throughout the PhD journey. Words cannot express the amazing support from my darling husband, Mr David Mendie. He stood by me throughout the most challenging times and motivated me morally and financially till the date of completion. My sincere gratitude goes to Hon. Kate Owoko, who supported the payment of my tuition fees. Again, words cannot express how I appreciate this kind gesture from her, as tuition is a vital prerequisite in attaining a doctorate.
Profound gratitude goes to my second supervisor Prof. Stuart Price who stood by me as a mentor and father. He always intervened whenever I seem to be departing from the right path and suggested the best possible ways to get it completed. My first supervisor Dr Ben
Harbisher was not just a supervisor; he was godsend. His quintessential skills in supervision led to a successful completion of Digital Surveillance and Social Justice in Nigeria: A study of
New Media Regulations. Thank you all for supporting me throughout the PhD journey.
2 ABSTRACT
This thesis reveals the social implication of digital surveillance in the Nigeria polity, using
Faircloughian Critical Discourse Analysis as a method of analysing data with a transdisciplinary framework of political economy discourse, a theory of the state and a Critical
Discourse Analysis. Findings from the study suggest that state actors censor Nigeria’s digital sphere through Wise Intelligence Technology. The thesis argues that without clearly defined data protection laws, the use of social media (as a platform through which to critique the state), becomes the means for gathering intelligence and enacting punitive justice over dissenting social actors. The study concludes by asserting that the lack of clearly defined data protection laws contributes to the regulation of freedom of speech in Nigeria.
3 DEFINITION OF TERMS
1) Affordability – If something is affordable, it’s priced reasonably, and you have enough
money to buy it
2) Amalgamation – The action, process, or result of combining or uniting
3) Anti-reductionism – The position in science and metaphysics that stands in contrast to
reductionism by advocating that not all properties of a system can be explained in terms of
its constituent parts and their interactions
4) Articulate – Having or showing the ability to speak fluently and coherently
5) Authoritarian – Favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of
personal freedom
6) Autonomous – having the freedom to govern itself or control its own affairs
7) Capability – The power or ability to something
8) Censorship – The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc., that
are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, as a threat to security
9) Coercion – The action or practice of persuading someone to do something by using force
or threats
10) Colonialism – The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over
another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically
11) Complicity – The fact or condition of being involved with others in an activity that is
unlawful or morally wrong
12) Conceptualising – Form a concept or idea
13) Connotation – An idea or feeling which a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal
or primary meaning
14) Dataveillance – The practice of monitoring digital data relating to personal details or online
activity
4 15) Deregulation – The reduction or elimination of government power in a particular industry,
usually enacted to create more competition within the industry
16) Dialectical – Relating to the logical discussion of ideas and opinions
17) Disaffection – A state or feeling of being dissatisfied, especially with people in authority
or a system of control
18) Discourse – Written or spoken communication or debate
19) Dissent – The holding or expression of opinions at variance with those commonly or
officially held
20) Dissident – A person who opposes official policy, especially that of an authoritarian state
21) Diversity – It means understanding that each individual is unique, and recognising our
individual differences. These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual
orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political
beliefs, or other ideologies
22) Draconian – Law or punishments that are extremely severe or cruel
23) Elision – The process of joining together or merging things, especially abstract ideas
24) Elitism – The belief that a society or system should be led by an elite
25) Ethnocentrism – Evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating in
the standards and customs of one’s own culture
26) Fuzziness – Difficult to perceive, indistinct or vague
27) Hegemony – Leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over others
28) Homilies – A religious discourse which is intended primarily for spiritual edification rather
than doctrinal instruction
29) Ideological – Based on or relating to a system of ideas and ideals, especially concerning
economic or political theory and policy
5 30) Imperialism – A policy of extending a country’s power and influence through colonisation,
use of military force, or other means
31) Inclusion – The action or state of including or being included within a group or structure
32) Industrialised – Develop industries in (a country or religion) on a wide scale
33) Instability – The state of being unstable
34) Integrating – To form, coordinate, or blend into a functioning or unified whole
35) Integration – The action or process of integrating
36) Intensification – The action of making or becoming more intense
37) Intolerable – Unable to be endured
38) Intrusive – Causing disruption or annoyance through being unwelcome or uninvited
39) IPOB – Indigenous People of Biafra
40) Janus faced – Having two sharply contrasting aspects or characteristics
41) Justice – The use of power as appointed by law, honour or standards to support fair
treatment and disregard
42) Juxtapositioning – The fact of two things being or placed together with contrasting effect
43) Legislation – Laws, considered collectively
44) Liberalism – Derived from Latin word liber which means free. For middleclass people
liberalism stood for individual and equality before the law
45) Mediocre – Of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate
46) Mediocrity – The quality or state of being mediocre
47) MEND – Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta
48) Militancy – The use of confrontational or violent methods in support of a political or social
cause
49) Militia – A military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular
army in an emergency
6 50) Mobilisation – Encouraging people to take action, especially political action
51) Multimodal – Multimodal projects are simply projects that have multiple “modes” of
communicating a message. For example, while traditional papers typically only have one
mode (text), a multimodal project would include a combination of text, images, motion, or
audio
52) Neoliberal – Relating to or denoting a modified form of liberalism tending to favour free-
market capitalism
53) Normative – Establishing, relating to, or deriving from a standard or norm, especially of
behaviour
54) Paradox – A seemingly absurd or proposition which when investigated may prove to be
well founded or true
55) Partisan – A strong supporter of a party, cause, or person
56) Persecution – Hostility and ill treatment, especially because of race or political or religious
beliefs
57) Pluralism – A condition or system in which two or more states, groups, principles, sources
of authority, etc., co-exist
58) Pluralism – A condition or system in which two or more states, groups, principles, sources
of authority, etc., coexist
59) Polity – A state as a political entity
60) Populace – The people living in a particular country or area
61) Populist – A person, especially a politician, who strives to appeal to ordinary people who
feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite
62) Prebendalism – Refers to political systems where elected officials and government workers
feel they have a right to a share of government revenue, and use them to benefit their
supporters, co-religionists and members of their ethnic group
7 63) Predominantly – Having superior strength, influence, or authority
64) Presupposition – A thing tacitly assumed beforehand at the beginning of a line of argument
or course of action
65) Punitive – Inflicting or intended as punishment
66) Rearticulate – to articulate (something) again
67) Recontextualise – Place or consider in a new or different context
68) Relational – Concerning the way in which two or more people are connected
69) Repression – The action of subduing someone or something by force
70) Reprisal – An act of retaliation
71) Resistance – The refusal to accept or comply with something
72) Retaliation – The action of returning a military attack; counterattack
73) Sedition – Conduct or speech inciting people to revel against the authority of a state or
monarch
74) Statute – A written law passed by a legislative body
75) Statutory – Required, permitted or enacted by Statute
76) Surveillance – Close observation especially of a suspected spy or criminal
77) Transdisciplinary – connotes a research strategy that crosses many disciplinary boundaries
to create a holistic approach
78) Tyranny – Cruel and oppressive government or rule
79) Ubiquitous – Present, appearing, or found everywhere
80) Unconstitutionally – Not in accordance with the political constitution or with procedural
rights
81) Uninterrupted – Without a break in continuity
82) Unprecedented – Never done or known before
8 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgement 2
Abstract 3
Definition of Terms 4
Table of Contents 9
CHAPTER ONE 14
1.0 Introduction 14
1.0.1 State and Statecraft 18
1.0.2 Capitalism 19
1.0.3 Democracy 23
1.0.4 Hashtag Activism and Online Mediation 25
1.0.5 Data Justice 27
1.0.6 Postcolonialism 31
1.0.7 Nigeria’s Postcolonial state 33
1.0.8 State Fragility 36
1.1 Research Question 40
1.1 Primary Aim 40
1.2 Objectives 40
1.3 Research Methodology 40
1.4 Original Contribution to Knowledge 41
1.5 Thesis Statement 42
1.6 Summary of Chapter 42
CHAPTER TWO: DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE 44
2.0 INTRODUCTION 44
2.1 Five Eyes Alliance/Dataveillance 48
9 2.2 Surveillance Industrial Complex 50
2.3 New Forms of Digital Surveillance 52
2.4 Nigeria’s Surveillance State 59
2.5 Crime Control in the 21st Century 61
2.5.1 Security Agencies Responsible for Crime Control in Nigeria 61
2.5.2 The Nigeria Police 61
2.5.3 Joint Intelligence Board 62
2.5.4 The Federal Investigations and Intelligence Bureau 63
2.5.5 The States Security Service 63
2.5.6 National Intelligence Agency (NIA) 64
2.5.7 The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) 65
2.6 Internet Control Agencies in Nigeria 65
2.6.1 National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) 65
2.6.2 Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) 66
2.7 Big Data Collection/Data Mining Procedure in Nigeria 68
2.8 Social Injustice in the Digital Sphere 70
2.9 Summary 72
CHAPTER THREE: SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND INTERNET CENSORSHIP 75
3.0 Introduction 75
3.1 Economic, Political, Cultural and Structural Approaches to Social Movements 76
3.2 The use of social media as a tool for political protests in Nigeria 88
3.3 Internet censorship in Nigeria 95
3.4 Surveillance of Nigeria Human Rights Defenders and Resistance 97
3.5 Summary 98
CHAPTER FOUR: RESEARCH DESIGN 100
10 4.0 Introduction 100
4.1 Critical Discourse Analysis 101
4.2 Fairclough’s Dialectical Relational Approach to CDA 109
4.3 Summary 111
CHAPTER FIVE: ANALYSIS OF CORPUS POLICY DOCUMENTS 113
5.0 Introduction 113
5.1 Sedition 115
5.1.1 Political Control 115
5.1.2 Ideology 116
5.2 A Critical Discourse Analysis of Sahara Reporters and the Irish Times 118
5.3 The Texts 119
5.4 Internal Relations 119
5.4.1 Action 119
5.4.2 Representation 119
5.4.3 Vocabulary 120
5.4.4 Quoted Sources 124
5.5 Identification 125
5.5.1 Sahara Reporters 125
5.5.2 The Irish Times 126
5.6 Multimodal Discourse Analysis 126
5.7 Discussion 126
CHAPTER SIX 140
6.0 Interview Analysis 140
6.1 Method of Recording Transcription of Interview 140
6.2 Themes/Variables from Interview session 141
11 6.3 Theme 1: Reasons for mobilisation 141
6.3.1 State Censorship 142
6.3.2 Unpopular Policies 143
6.3.3 Neglect of Statutory Duties 145
6.3.4 Violence 148
6.4 Theme 2: Resistance Environments 149
6.4.1 Physical Environment 149
6.4.2 Online Environment 150
6.5 Theme 3: Impact of Protests 151
6.5.1 Policing/Coercion 151
6.5.2 Surveillance 153
6.6 Theme 4: Freedom of Speech 156
6.6.1 Limited Freedom of Speech 156
6.6.2 Unlimited Freedom of Speech 156
6.7 Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Amnesty International UK report on the demolition
of Nigeria media houses by state actors 157
6.8 Discussion 157
CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 163
7.0 Thesis Overview 163
7.1 Limitation of Study 170
7.2 Findings and Recommendation 170
Appendix 1: Informed Consent Form 173
Appendix 2: Participant Information Sheet 175
Appendix 3: Graph: List of Documents Analysed and URL address 177
Appendix 4: Interview Transcripts 178
12 Appendix 5: Link to Short Film of Thesis Findings 197
Appendix 6: Planned Policy on Digital Regulations 198
Bibliography 200
13 CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Freedoms declined globally in 2018 for the 13th time, according to Freedom of the
World (Schenkann and Repucci, 2018; Abramowitz, 2019). China and Russia with authoritarian regimes are not the only nations that suffer repression, as many nations, including the United States and Europe, portray vertices of liberal authoritarian style of governance
(Shore, 2011; Somek, 2015; Juego, 2017; Schenkan and Repucci, 2018; Abramowitz, 2019).
Liberal Authoritarian style of governance according to Somek (2015, p340) “seeks to capture the liaison between the strong state and economic liberalism”. He further suggests that states utilise a liberal authoritarian style of Governance as a managerial tool and also towards authoritarianism (Ibid.). In Authoritarian states, democratic practices that existed in previous regimes due to calls for reforms by international agencies, increasingly face decline by established Government institutions (Bogush, 2017; Kara, 2019). Independent media and opposition leaders suffer strict regulations by authoritarian powers (Morgenbesser, 2019;
Schenkkan and Repucci, 2018; Zaid, 2017; Miller and Peters, 2018; Vladisavljevic, 2016;
Guriev and Treisman, 2019). Populist political forces have impacted on stable democracies that refused to adhere to principles such as; persecution of minority groups and separation of powers. Some democratic nations that have currently improved by enabling a better life for citizens and ensuring leaders are accountable include Ethiopia, Ecuador, Angola, Malaysia, and Armenia (Schenkkan and Repucci, 2018). The struggle to protect democracy is real and powerful, as civil societies call for inclusion and justice since freedom of speech is facing restrictions in democratic nations such as North America, Europe, and so on (Ibid.).
Nations without press freedoms in Freedom in the World from 1988-2005 reduced from
37%-23%, which is nearly 14 percent (Schenkkan and Repucci, 2018; Abramowitz, 2019).
Countries with press freedoms increased by 10%, i.e. 36%-46%. Since 2005, freedom of speech
14 of some nations have been restricted. They include; Nicaragua, Tanzania, Venezuela, Serbia,
Bangladesh, Cambodia, Egypt, Pakistan, Togo, Benin, Cameroon, China, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Moldova, Romania, and Senegal (Abramowitz, 2019). Since the early 2000s, many nations have struggled to remain democratic, as a result of a liberal authoritarian style of governance (Levitsky and Way, 2002; Sharma, 2007). Democratic organisations that are economically fragile and divided by class and ethnic antagonism face continuous attacks
(Schenkkan and Repucci, 2018; Abramowitz, 2019).
23 nations in the past 13 years faced restriction of freedom of expression (Abramowitz,
2019). However, since 1988, 61% attained a positive status. To elaborate on this data, Hungary attained free status in 1990, yet moved to partly free in 2018, with a decline in 5 continuous years. This was as a result of undemocratic values by Prime Minister Victor Orban Fidesz. This development led to restrictions and control of NGOs, the mass media, the courts, religious groups, academia, the private sector, and asylum seekers. Similarly, Nicaragua’s freedom status changed from “partly free to not free” as a result of state opposition to anti-government protests which led to vicious reprisals against religious and political opposition leaders by the state - resulting in substantial deaths. Serbia’s freedom status also changed from “free to partly free” as a result of President Aleksandar Vucic’s conflicting constitutional role in exercising his executive powers which led to repeated attacks by the state in reducing press rights through smear campaigns, legal harassments, and depreciation in the management of elections.
Uganda’s freedom status changed from partly free to not free due to restriction of “freedom of expression through a regressive tax on social media use and surveillance of electronic communications” (Ibid.). Zimbabwe’s “freedom status changed from not free to partly free after the forceful resignation of President Mugabe by the military in 2017, which led to the election of President Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2018, although the election was severely flawed” (Ibid.).
15 China and India’s highly industrialised societies with international power attained
increment in economic wealth, especially China with growth in GDP per capita between 1990
to 2017 for 16 consecutive times (Schenkkan and Repucci, 2018; Abramowitz, 2019). Medium
and low skilled workers in established democracies seldom benefit from the wealth, since there
is instability in jobs due to technological changes and foreign competition. Although, some far
right parties such as Trump in America have therefore stated they are against international
cooperation as a result of the diminishing spaces of America’s ability to drive collective action
and shape international agenda due to the shift of power from the US to China (Pascal, 2019)
Loss of personal status and economic inequality is a result of such developments, which causes
increasing anxiety and anger in the United States and Europe. This disruption was inadequately
addressed by established democratic superpowers, which led to emerging competitors in revealing disaffection towards a liberal authoritarian style of governance (Schenkkan and
Repucci, 2018; Abramowitz, 2019)
The United States “agitation for separation of children from migrant parents, the detention of migrants in Libya, the indefinite confinement of seaborne migrants in Squalid camps on the remote Island of Nauru-Australia and the aggressive policies towards migrants and refugee, is as a result of strict paths to immigration which results in human rights infringements” (Abramowitz, 2019). The violation of individual rights as “a universal value due to populist appeals to traditional national values in democracies” (Ibid.) offers opportunities “for the abuse of human rights by authoritarian states. The behaviours of China and other authoritarian powers are strengthened by the weakening of democracy by anti-liberal
Governments” (Ibid.). The extent to which global freedom is threatened could be alleviated by unity with the United States and established democracies by ensuring commitment to democratic values. Contrastingly, disunity amongst democratic nations and retreat of the
16 United States from engaging in democracy globally or forming alliances with rivals will only
decline democratic values (Ibid.).
Since 2012, freedom of speech continues to decline globally through infringement of ordinary citizens’ rights and press assaults by nation-states. Notable examples are the
revelation of criminal investigations of journalists arrested for “insulting the president” in
Turkey in 2017, which surmounted to about 6000 prosecutions and 20,000 arrests (Free Onur
Hamzaoglu, 2018). Similarly, in Myanmar, journalists such as Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone
were arrested for their investigative reporting (FCC Hong Kong, 2019). Digital
authoritarianism was borne from these new forms of state behaviour towards citizens’ online
dissent. For instance, surveillance and Internet censorship are strengthened through China’s
model of organising training and seminars on facial recognition and artificial intelligence
technologies (Singhai, 2019; Daly et al., 2019). This development suggests a growing risk to
global democracy “as the Internet carries out the role of a virtual public sphere” (Ibid.).
The struggle for social justice through protests by ensuring democracy still holds its
powers have been successful in some countries. For instance, in Armenia, massive protests by
citizens led to the resignation of Serzh Sargsyan who tried to break constitutional policies by
elongating his term in office as President – a position he held since 2008. A new Prime Minister
was elected, accountability and transparency were promised by the Parliament’s new reformist
majority. In Ecuador, Presidential term limits were restored by the passing of a constitutional
referendum by President Lenin Moreno. This goes against the anti-democratic practices of his
predecessor Rafael Correa, as he ensured media criticism attained a calm viewpoint and corrupt
politicians do not take up leadership positions. In Malaysia, a new Prime Minister emerged in
the recent elections, which replaced the former anti-democratic Najib Razak and his political
cohorts, and they were brought to justice for their corrupt practices. Three years of protests in
Ethiopia prompted the removal of the “monopolistic ruling party” (Abramowitz, 2019). A new
17 Prime Minister was elected, who created a public space for political issues and discussion, the state of emergency was lifted, and political prisoners were released. These developments suggest that citizens continue to strive for the protection of democracy (Ibid.).
According to Odumesi (2015 cited in Babajide and Odumesi, 2016), Nigeria’s increasing dependence on information communication technology is the result of unprecedented growth in the Nigerian Government’s Internet policies. In 2016, Internet subscribers on Mobile Communications were 97,212,364 which represents about 69% of the
2006 census population (Ibid.). Similarly, Babajide and Odumesi (2016), suggests that the citizens of Nigeria believe that the Nigeria Government monitors Internet usage.
1.0.1 STATE AND STATE CRAFT
According to Offe and Ronge (1975, p137), Marxist state theories failed to address the capitalist state crisis. Similarly, Nicos Poulantza’s opinion of the state as “an autonomous structure, paralleling the structure of the dominant class, is impaired by structuralist blinders to the extent that it fails to take into consideration the historical character of the state as a changing entity, or its concrete empirical character within the social totality”. Milliband’s theory of the state focused on the “influence of the ruling class”, without emphasising on the
“organisation and social function of the state (Ibid.). Claus Offe's theories of the state focus on
“the historical changes in the nature of advanced capitalist society, while paying close attention to the empirical characteristic of state activity” (Ibid.). Jessop (1990, p4) state theory emphasised on “anti-reductionism” by focusing on “the analysis of specific regimes (such as corporatism and parliamentarism) and more complex analysis of political economy (especially accumulation strategies and modes of regulation”. Jessop (2007) defined the state as a “distinct and exclusive territorial domain in which it is formally free to act without interference from other states, and as such, needs to defend its territorial integrity by force” (Jessop 2017, p13)
18 suggests that the growing debates by politicians and scholars since the 1980s surrounding the
issues facing nation-states is challenging because on one hand states struggle to solve its
problems, and also strives to contribute in solving the global problems. The challenges facing
states are politically constructed, and as such, there is “little agreement about what these
problems mean for the state” (Ibid.). Bonefield (1993) criticised Jessop’s state theory. He argues that Jessop “equates class struggle with capitalist strategies, thus destroying the Marxian notion of a contradictory constitution of social relations”.
Constitutional powers of the Nigerian president have posed some major problems since the Nigeria polity is “modelled on the USA’s presidential system” (though the Nigeria president possesses more territorial powers than the USA president (Yusuf, 2018, p26). The constitutional powers of the Nigeria president which are above the powers of the USA president such as assenting and signing of bills (Onyeaku and Jaja, 2020), makes “social transformation difficult to achieve” (Yusuf, 2018, p26). In the period of transitioning from military rule to democratic rule, four presidents (Olusegun Obasanjo – a former military president 1999-2007,
Musa Yar’Adua 2007-2009, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan 2009-2015 and Muhammadu Buhari
2015 – a former military president 2015-present)” have ruled the Nigeria polity, and have made efforts in achieving transitional justice (Yusuf, 2018, p24). Problems associated with transitional justice include gatekeeping and nepotism ranging from “political misrule, grand corruption, gross violations of human rights and impunity” (Yusuf, 2018, p26). This form of political rule remains in present-day Nigeria polity, as political leaders ensure political power is handed over to close allies that can continue the legacies of “corruption, gross violations of human rights, political misrule and impunity”, and also the protection of past political leaders from accountability (Ibid.).
1.0.2 CAPITALISM
19 According to Wrong (1998, p3 cited in Price, 2017, p91), “capitalism is an economic
system which promotes a bourgeoise society”. Freedman (1996, p169 cited in Price, 2017, p92)
argues that Marx made mention in his works that “capitalist productions moves in
contradictions”. However, (Dodd, 1999, p19 cited in Price 2017, p93) asserts that Marx’s
capitalist society has some limitations as regards “a theoretical argument regarding the political
economy of capitalism with a normative argument regarding the position and political potential
of the working class”. However, Acemoglu (2017) asserts that scholars should abandon the
philosophies of capitalism in the nineteenth century from Karl Marx, Adam Smith, Pierr-
Joseph and David Ricardo. They place much emphasis on “the crudest form of exploitation”
(Ibid.). According to Carlone (2017), capitalism in communication theory and organisational
research falls under labour exploitation context and competitive market system. Moreover, this
thesis supports Jessop (1990, p12) assertions of capitalism which states that “modern states are
capitalist states” (Ibid.) because the modern Nigeria economy is being controlled by multinationals in a bid to promote capitalism (Biersteker, 2014). Jessop (1990, p12) goes further to mention four critiques of Marx’s capitalism. It reads;
Firstly, the statist, as much as the Marxist claim that the modern state enjoys a legitimate monopoly over the means of physical coercion, must be fundamentally qualified. For it relates much more to the separation of coercion from the organisation of production (exploitation takes the form of exchange, dictatorship takes the form of democracy) than it takes the form of male coercion from the family and patriarchal discrimination over women. Secondly, if the state is uncritically defined in terms of the juridicial distinction between public and private, it is not just class relations which are obfuscated, but also, and perhaps even more fundamentally, a crucial mechanism of patriarchal domination. Thirdly, turning to the repressive core of states constituted by the military and police apparatus, feminist analyses have shown important links among militarism, the state and patriarchy. Fourthly, feminist research is beginning to reveal new aspects of the strategic selectivity of the state in relation to its basic forms and not just in relation to the specific content of one or another policy field. Thus there are feminist critiques of forms of representation (e.g. how the rise of party form reinforced the division between public and private, the internal organisation of the state (the feminist critique of bureaucracy as form) and intervention (e.g. the very form of the Keynesian welfare state) (Jessop 1990, p14-15).
Jessop (2017, p16) suggests that to deal with the problems facing capitalist states, we ought to
move away from the Keynesian model, which is no longer effective in the management of
20 territorial states, because “competitive capitalist economies have evolved to the monopoly
capital stage, where oligopolistic corporations influence the dynamics of the economy”
(Kriesler, 2011). Jessop (2017, p16) further asserts that sovereign states in the modern state
system, do not have equal opportunities internationally and nationally in the exercise of power.
The previous democratic regime in Nigeria led by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan
passed into law a Cyber Crime Act 2015 (Udeogu et al., 2017). The cyberspace provides opportunities for users to harass, insult or ridicule any state representative which is a limitation of the Internet. This limitation has resulted in the damage to the reputation of other online users’ (Maho, 2016 cited in Udeogu et al., 2017). The Cybercrime Act (2015) is the largest legislation in Nigeria that deals specifically with cybersecurity enacted. Cybercrimes are crimes in which a computer is the object of the crime or utilised as a tool to commit an offence
(Okoh and Chukwueke, 2016 cited in Udeogu et al., 2017).
In s24 of the Cybercrime Act (2015), there is a prohibition of hate speech, and s38 allows Internet Service Providers to store data and grants intelligence agencies the rights to access information (Ibid.). This Act violates citizens’ rights to privacy (Freedom on the net,
2017). The 2015 Cybercrime Act informed the arrests of Journalists and media activists
(Onwuaso, 2018). The legislation was enacted as a result of the 2015 presidential elections where the major opposition party-All Peoples Congress to the People’s Democratic Party mobilised social movement groups such as Occupy Nigeria, Social Movement Change, etc. on social media. They protested against the ruling body by recalling Nigerians on the increased rate of the Boko Haram insurgency (Udeogu et al., 2017), corruption and so on which in turn led to the defeat of the ex-president who re-contested under the People’s Democratic Party that led the nation for 16 years since the inception of the fourth republic in 1999 (Ojedokun, 2016, p12).
21 Following the outcome of the 2015 presidential election in Nigeria and the victory of
President Muhammadu Buhari, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan accepted the defeat and
signed a Cyber Crime Act 2015 which was supported by the upper and lower legislative bodies
(House, 2018) in a bid to promote censorship of anti-governmental discourse on social media
(Privacy International, 2014). Similarly, he achieved this by contracting an Israeli Technology
Company (Elbit Systems technology) with the sum of $40 million to purchase its “Wise
Intelligence Technology” (Privacy International, 2014) to snoop on Nigerian citizens (House,
2018). Even when regime change has taken place, the law still exists as at the time of writing,
as it helps in combating crime and promoting criminal legislations (Lazarus and Okolorie,
2019). The lack of clearly defined data protection law gives intelligence and security agencies
the power to arrest Nigerians who produce dissenting views.
Paradigm Initiative, a civil society organisation in Nigeria, revealed in an online article that the Federal Government of Nigeria has secret plans in censoring online newspapers by secretly giving mandates to the Nigerian Communications Commission to close some website domains (Ogo, 2017). Contents that are of a breach of national security are identified through censorship by Wise Intelligence Technology (Privacy International, 2014). The Internet
revolution in Nigeria has surpassed traditional journalism, and the freedom of the press is not
absolute (Udeogu et al., 2017). The Cybercrime Act and the Criminal code, as stipulated in the amended s45 of the Nigerian Constitution which derogates fundamental human right by
“legalising any law that censors press freedom if said law is determined to be in the interest of
national security or if it is necessary to protect the rights or freedoms of other persons” (Adibe
et al., 2017, p118), regulates press freedom and was enacted as a result of problems associated with the prosecution of offences related to cyberstalking. Criminal code, on the other hand,
limits press freedom of the traditional press such as broadcast and print media (Udeogu et al.,
2017).
22 1.0.3 DEMOCRACY
Price (2019b) asserts that citizens are truly informed by the support and active interventions of free media in a democratic state. The values of democracy are ingrained in its widely accepted definition as government by representation (Canovan, 2002; Welzel and
Inglehart, 2008). An insight into this definition suggests that citizens of a nation ought to and
should be allowed to be actively involved in issues of the state. Before decisions on policies or
actions are taken by the state, democratic values portend that approval of the populace is sought
and maintained for a sustainable political atmosphere. However, the underlying questions that
reside in the democratic world today include: do we live in a world where the ordinary citizen
enjoys equal human and civil rights with the elites of society? In a third world country like
Nigeria that was governed by Britain before achieving independence in 1960, three decades of
military rule after independence heralded repressive regimes with leadership styles that were
autocratic. Although May 1999 ushered in the period of civilian rule in Nigeria, leadership
traits peculiar to the colonial and authoritarian period are still existent in this so-called democratic nation. It is the persistence of such autocratic leadership style in the wake of a democratically ruled society that begs to question if democracy is practised in Nigeria, and whether or not can democratic principles be found in the very existence of the society because a third world country like Nigeria was colonised by Britain, and was later ruled for a long period by the military with harsh rules on its citizens (Akor, 2017).
The Internet has contributed to changes and advancements in solutions/services in an increasing form in Nigeria than in most advanced nations (Manama and Kazeem, 2014). Social media innovations increased such capabilities, as the opportunities it brought to a developing nation like Nigeria is infinite (Ibid.). Social media keeps evolving, and innovations are on the increase in existing systems of social media, some of which are marketing opportunities, news
23 reporting and activism. Social media has six categories, namely; social networks, social news, bookmarking sites, media sharing sites, blogs, forums and microblogging (Manama and
Kazeem, 2014). Such practices in Nigeria have led to revolutions and monitoring of best practices in elections which contributes to the positive impact of social media by its contribution to growth and advancement of the nation. As of 2013, Internet users were 50 million (Ajayi, 2015). More recently, Internet users in Nigeria have grown to 98.3 million (The
Communicator, 2018), where more users are on mobile chat platforms such as WhatsApp and
2go than on social networking sites (Eze, 2018).
The rise in Internet accessibility in Nigeria has increased popularity and economic profitability of online journalism, which allows for easy distribution of editorial contents on the Internet, connection and discussions as opposed to the traditional means where it had to be published by print or broadcast media. The provision of opportunities for consumers to interact on such platforms is integral to online journalism (Cohen, 2015). However, online journalism has advantages and disadvantages. An average individual can now impact the news world through new media tools such as blogs. It has become “increasingly difficult to sift through the massive amount of information coming in from the digital area of journalism” (Ornebring,
2010), which suggests differentiation in the style of reporting between legitimate news organisations, citizen journalism and social media.
Citizen journalism is the blurring of lines between traditional and new media journalism
(Manama and Kazeem, 2014). The evolution of social media has brought forth a shift to partisan journalism, as it creates opportunities for expression of personal opinion in news reports (Eze, 2018). Social media platforms like Twitter allow journalists to engage directly with their readers. The impact of such engagement to journalistic works is that it allows the authors to understand the minds of their readers, and find out whether or not they are interested in a piece of writing, or find out about the feelings of the readers of a journalistic piece. Most
24 journalists are encouraged to investigate stories via blogs and Twitter (Manama and Kazeem,
2014).
A weakness of social media journalism is that sometimes writers lack the professional
training and there is limited or no editorial oversight required in journalistic practice, and as
such most of the news shared on such platforms are either misleading or unbalanced (Manama
and Kazeem, 2014; Okoro et al., 2018). During 2015, social media influenced citizens to
participate in the presidential elections (Omojuwa, 2015 cited in Udeogu et al., 2017; Reid,
2015). The proliferation of social media is an indication that the Internet has become an
influential source of information and social mobilisation (Ibid.). Thus, there is a need to tackle
trolling – that is, the spreading of false information and images on the Internet aimed at discrediting or defaming another person’s character. An example is the sanction of the overseer of Christ Embassy – Pastor Chris Oyakhilome’s YouTube video by Ofcom – UK’s media regulator. He was sanctioned as a result of emphasising on 5G network as the major cause of the coronavirus pandemic (Adebayo, 2020). Maho (2016 cited in Udeogu et al., 2017) noted that because anyone with basic knowledge of the Internet can become an untrained online journalist with potentially thousands or even millions of followers, the government monitors digital data. In the age of journalism and extensive use of social media in the redistribution of news, s24 of the Cybercrime Act has immense implications not only for online press freedom in Nigeria but also for the freedom of expression in general. However, to better understand these implications, the connection between liberal authoritarian democracy and press freedom in postcolonial states such as Nigeria needs to be explained, as presented in chapter three.
1.0.4 HASHTAG ACTIVISM AND ONLINE MEDIATION
Twitter provides a forum for users to produce contents at will (Meraz and Papacharissi,
2013). Considering this, digital activism shifts power away from traditional news media, as it provides the opportunity for users to tweet about events in real-time as events occur because
25 users are scattered in the network to redistribute news (Siapera, 2014). Nigeria digital activists
use hashtags as a “form of political action” to fight against injustices (Ofori-Parku and Moscato
(2018; Akpojivi, 2019; Uwalaka et al. 2020). However, critics suggest that activists’ tweets are
neither fragmented nor random (Bonilla and Rosa, 2015, p10; Ofori-Parku and Moscato, 2018).
According to Meraz and Papacharissi (2013, p139), actors in the Twittersphere persistently
revise, rearticulate and rework narrative frames. This framing and gatekeeping practices are
outsourced, as it involves state and non-state actors. This form of gatekeeping practices implies
that it may lead to the spread of fake news in the digital sphere (Ekeanyanwu and Jnr, 2013).
Similarly, the shared contents on Twitter via hashtag provide an opportunity in the form of
network frames for followers and leaders to emerge in the social structure (Callison and
Hemida, 2015).
Although, some authors have criticized hashtag activism, insisting that it encourages
slacktivism – a situation where users become satisfied by tweeting from their comfort zones
(Ofori-Parku and Moscato, 2018). It is further argued by Valenzuela (2013) that for social
movements to make desired changes, online and offline environments must be utilised by
activists for mobilisation. The argument here is that digital activism is often spearheaded by
marginalised people in societies, minority groups and people/communities that are
misrepresented in the traditional news media (Vie, 2014; Bonilla and Rosa, 2015). It provides an opportunity for disaffected voices to be heard (Ibid.). In this context, Fairclough’s (1992) transformative power of discourse is ignored by critiques of hashtag activism by regarding such opportunity as slacktivism.
Hashtag activism also builds community engagement through social network platforms where issues are not only debated but provides a unique environment where different classes of people in a society build ties (Bonilla and Rosa 2015, p11). The #Bring Back Our Girls created unity amongst nations in times of crisis (Olutokunbo et al., 2015). Despite increasing
26 benefits of hashtag activism in the promotion of democratic values, why are representative
bodies in Nigeria calling for the closing of civic spaces? Let us have a look at the consequences
of social media legislation.
1.0.5 DATA JUSTICE
In 2015, a social media bill was drafted by a Kebbi South Senator Bala Na’Allah to the
Senate committee, with the title - The Frivolous Petition Prohibition Bill (2015), which passed
second reading on the 2nd of December 2015, and is further analysed in Chapter five. This bill prompted human rights activists in Nigeria to carry out online and offline protests, from
#NotoSocialMediaBill on Twitter to #MarchonNASS (Oladapo and Ojebuyi, 2017). The bill
provided strict monitoring of Nigerian social media users and the restriction of freedom of
speech (Ibid.). However, protesters took to Twitter and flooded the Internet with dissenting views which gained global recognition, and human rights organisations around the world supported the resistance (Ibid.). The protest recorded “fear-induced” frames that attracted the call for the signing of petitions against such legislation.
The protest yielded positive outcomes as it led to the withdrawal of the bill by the current president, Muhammadu Buhari (who denied involvement in such a bill). By implication, social media legislation with state censorship impacts negatively on protest groups in Nigeria, especially human rights activist groups, as there has been a massive outcry of regulations of freedom of speech (Hari, 2014; Chiluwa and Ifukor, 2013; Chiluwa and Ifukor,
2015; Akor, 2017). The cyberspace is the new frontier of political discourse as a novel public sphere considering revelations of advocacy (Ibid.). Since 2016, journalists and media activists have been arrested as a result of Internet censorship (Freedom on the Net, 2017; Okunoye et al., 2018). In s37 of the 1999 Nigerian constitution, there is provision for privacy protection of citizens correspondence, but this does not cover digital data (Erinle, 2017). Previously, there were no legal frameworks to protect digital data at the time of writing, and as such netizens are
27 vulnerable to spying practices on digital networks in Nigeria (Izuogu, 2018). This is done
unconstitutionally with the government’s claims for safeguarding measures due to the
country’s massive insecurity crisis (Ibid.). Although recently, the NITDA published a Data
Protection Regulation 2019 (Greenleaf, 2019) with so much state control, which prompts this
thesis to call for a clearly defined data protection law to protect Nigeria citizens digital data.
Additionally, the lack of clearly defined data protection legislation offers opportunities
for foreign intelligence and monitoring, derived from location services provided on
smartphones, laptops, and social media updates (Erinle, 2017). These developments impact
negatively on citizens of Nigeria, as people may not be aware of how state and non-state actors use data. The laws that exist in Nigeria at the time of writing that was intended to protect citizen’s rights include Child Right Acts 2003, Consumer Code of Practice Regulations 2007,
Freedom of Information Act 2011, Regulation of Telephone Subscribers 2011 and Cybercrime
Act 2015 (Ibid.). The Cybercrime Act enacted in May 2015 requires service providers to retain
user data and intercept electronic communications for two years (Udeogu et al., 2017). Under
s38 of the law, providers are required to “keep all traffic data and subscriber information for
two years” and comply with requests from law enforcement agencies to access this data (Cyber
Crime Act, 2015, s38).
The legislation implies a degree of judicial oversight over these requests, but the
procedure involved is unclear. Paradigm Initiative, a civil liberty organisation in Nigeria, filed a suit in May 2016 to challenge s24 and s38 of the Cybercrime Act 2015 (Paradigm Initiative,
2016). In a 2017 January court ruling, the court of Appeal in Lagos dismissed the case
CA/L/556/2017 and affirmed the judgement of “Idris J. of the Federal high court” who struck
out Paradigm Initiative’s request to make unconstitutional s24 and s38 of the Cybercrime Act
2015 (Global Freedom of Expression, 2018). The case is currently in the Supreme court as at
the time of writing as a result of gross violations of human rights by the Nigerian state
28 authorities. Journalist Rotimi Jolayemi was charged for cyberstalking and was forcefully
arrested by Alhaji Lai Mohammed – the Minister of Information and Culture, following repression of the journalist’s wife and brother. Similarly, human right activist Gabriel Ogbonna was also arrested by the Abia State Government and charged with cyber terrorism for publishing a Facebook post against the Governor of Abia State (Paradigm Initiative, 2020).
Additionally, Paradigm Initiative sued the Ministry of Science and Technology for surveillance
satellite acquisition and the Nigerian Communications Commission for illegal access
restrictions to virtual news sites. The Nigeria Defense Minister promises to support the
monitoring of social media to discover anti-military, anti-government or anti-security data
(Onwuaso, 2018).
Although May 1999 ushered in the period of civilian rule in Nigeria, leadership traits peculiar to the colonial and authoritarian period are still entrenched in this so-called democratic state. It is the persistence of the autocratic leadership style of governance in the wake of the transition from military rule to democratic rule that begs to question if the values of democracy exist in Nigeria. In Nigeria, democracy is perceived as the best form of government the country may have enjoyed since its amalgamation in 1914 (Joshua, 2018). A major feature of democracy is that individuals are chosen through a modern system of an election through a process that involves the selection of representation.
The selection of representation is essential in democracy (Nnadozie, 2007) because leadership in most societies are indispensable in the development of nations. Also, the imposition of policies and laws that are anti-democratic has led to a social outcry by protest groups (Akor, 2017). Protest groups in democracy exist to represent or advocate for marginalised groups (Weldon, 2011). The evolution of social media has further encouraged social participation in democratic Nigeria through partisan journalism. As such, it is easier for citizens to articulate dissenting views on social issues of the state as it affects them (Manama
29 and Kazeem, 2014). Thus, there was of the mainstream media, especially in a third world nation
like Nigeria, substantial regulations in terms of licensing, sanctioning, arbitrating and
monitoring (Ihechu and Okugo, 2013). However, in the period of regime changes, the media
were highly political. Purchasing of slots were very competitive and were evident in the
scarcity of airtime, minimal slots for groups to air out their dissenting views or for opposition
parties to publish their concerns (Okoro and Nwafor, 2013). Underdevelopment, corruption,
poverty, unemployment, inequality, oppression, marginalisation and many more are the major
problems the ordinary citizens of Nigeria face. Similarly, protest groups utilise the Internet as
a tool for communicating their discontent, and for convening physical protests (Akor, 2017).
Social media activism invariably facilitated massive involvement in actions that
attracted state monitoring because social media brought forth a lot of dissenting statements
against the state on digital spaces. This form of activism resulted in the creation of stiffer media
regulations by the state in a bid to establish and maintain order. An example of which is a
sponsored anti-social media bill named the Frivolous Prohibition Petition Bill (2015) that was
submitted to the Senate house of representative in 2015. In the wake of this event, web activists,
tech professionals and human right groups took to Twitter using the hashtag
#NoToSocialMediaBill to oppose the proposed legislation that had unusually quickly passed
the second reading. The democratic state of Nigeria is nascent in comparison with nations of
the western world that had practised democracy long before Nigeria began to practice
democracy. According to Okoro and Nwafor (2013), as opposed to the previous electoral
processes that had taken place in Nigeria since 1999, when civil rule started, voters were not
actively involved in electoral processes.
However, the 2011 elections were a process that went down in history with less violence due to an unprecedented and uninterrupted active participation by the citizenry, an action which the social media made possible. In a bid for the call of a better democratic nation,
30 a lot of social movements and protest groups sprung up in Nigeria, carrying out protests on
physical and online environments (Remi Ayeide, 2003; Bamidele, 2012). The ubiquitous
nature of social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, which does not allow for an individual
to be highly technical to operate, promotes hashtag activism. Social groups express their
concerns and disaffections on the activities of the democratic state of Nigeria that negates
promises made of a better life for Nigerians of all classes. Major issues that are campaigned
for in the Nigeria polity are terrorism (Agbiboa, 2013), lack of social amenities such as
electricity, good drinking water, and so on (Onyechi, 2018) and unpopular government policies
(Obi, 2018). When protest occurs, regulations are proposed by the state to limit the rights of
individuals such as the monitoring of Internet Service Providers in Nigeria, the introduction of new laws to criminalise dissenting views on social media and the arrest of journalists and media activists through Internet censorship of data (Tafida and Dada, 2014; Okunoye et al., 2018).
1.0.6 POST-COLONIALISM
In conceptualising post-colonialism, texts of Spivak et al. (2006), Bhabha (1994), Said
(1978; 1980 cited in Hamadi, 2014), Stam and Shohat (2012) who are leading theorists of Post-
colonialism are examined and critiques are investigated to identify possible ways to overcome
the obstacles when performing a post-colonial analysis of this thesis. According to Spivak et
al. (2006),
post-colonial theory has a specific political history and intellectual genealogy that are distinct, but not entirely divorced, from soviet history. Post-colonial theory became possible with the post-war decolonisations of Africa and Asia and the related ascendancy of various national intelligentsias. These successes of secular nationalism enabled these intelligentsias to reexamine the recent past, just as the subsequent crisis of secular nationalism, enabled them to critique the failures of the post-colonial state and its complicities with older and newer imperialisms.
Bhabha (1994) argues;
The post-colonial perspective – as it is being developed by cultural historians and literary theorists, departs from the traditions of the sociology of underdevelopment or dependency theory. As a mode of analysis, it attempts to revise those nationalist or nativist pedagogies that set up the relation of third world and first world in a binary
31 structure of opposition. The post-colonial perspective resists the attempt at holistic forms of social explanation. It forces a recognition of the more complex cultural and political boundaries that exist on the cusp of these often-opposed political spheres.
Said (1978 cited in Hamadi, 2014, p39) argues that “the consequences of post-colonialism are
still persisting in the form of chaos, coups, corruption, civil wars, and bloodshed, which
permeates many ex-colonies”. Furthermore, Hamadi (2014, p39) is of the opinion that “being
free from the repression of imperialism, natives could, eventually produce their own culture of
opposition, build their image, and write their history outside the frame they have for long been
put into”. This thesis supports (Spivak et al., 2006) argument which posits that “post-colonial theory has a certain concern for social justice”, as the thesis signals a call for decolonisation of the Nigeria polity since Said (1980 cited in Hamadi, 2014, p43) argues that;
a literature of opposition and decolonization started to appear reflecting opposition to the empire in the center as well as nationalist resistance in the peripheral. He believes that culture is an advance of politics, military history or economic process… just as culture may predispose and actively prepare one society for the overseas domination of another, it may also prepare that society to relinquish or modify the idea of overseas domination.
Criticisms of post-colonial theory according to Stam and Shohat (2012, p371) by
Marxist writers Aijaz Ahmad and Arif Dirluk is listed below;
1) The elision of class (sometimes linked ad hominem to the elite status of the theorist themselves. 2) A tendency to subjectivize political struggles by reducing them to intrapsychic tensions, a critique addressed to Bhabha’s post-structural recasting of Fanon. 3) An avoidance noted by Marxists, of political economy in a globalized age where neoliberal economies drives many of the cultural shifts registered by the theory. 4) An obsessive antibinarism that ignores the intractable binarism of colonialism itself (a critique made by phenomenologically oriental Fanonions. 5) A haughty superliciousness (noted by Ann du Cille) towards fields such as ethnic studies, which shared many axioms with post-colonial critique and helped open up institutional space for post-colonial studies, yet which were dismissed as essentialist. 6) A tendency to focus on faded European empires while ignoring the actually existing U.S. Neoimperialsim that surged into the vacuum left by the receding empires. 7) A commonwealth-centrism which, while valid in its own terms, sometimes quietly assumes the British-Indian relation as paradigmatic, while neglecting vast regions such as Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the indigenous fourth world (including that within India itself)
32 8) A lack of historical precision (noted by historian such as Frederick Cooper) linked to a vertiginous rhetoric of slippage that allowed little concrete sense of time or place except when the theoretical helicopter landed on a random historical example. 9) The inordinate privileging of themes of hybridity, diaspora, and elite cosmopolitanism, to the detriment of refugees and displaced persons and the racialized division of International labour. 10) A failure to articulate post-colonial theory in relation to ecology and climate change.
Post-colonial theories have also been criticized by Marxist writers Terry Eagleton and Sana
Hague of “complicity with American cultural imperialism” (Hamadi, 2014, p45). This thesis
tends to overcome the criticisms of post-colonial theory by not emphasizing on neoliberal
economy when analysing Nigeria’s political economy. Let us investigate the legacies of British
colonialism in the Nigeria polity.
1.0.7 NIGERIA’S POSTCOLONIAL STATE
The practices of leaders of colonial empires in Nigeria was a policy of “colonial
integration” (Wimmer, 1997; Bleich, 2005; Kuhn, 2007). State power was handed over to those
who supported and represented the “collective will of the national community” in modern
states (Modelski, 1972, p9-108). This discourse resulted to the notion of self-determination, as it became the principles of modern European nation-states, which in turn spread around the world as the “juridicial, ideological and political backbone of the world order of states”
(Cassese, 1995). However, such discourse is a liberal authoritarian style of governance, which has now had consequences on Nigeria’s post-colonial polity, as they still practice the nation- state model of hegemony. An example is the ethnic conflicts in Nigeria in the struggle for a quota of political power (Osaghae, 2001; Thomas, 2017; Ogunnubi, 2018). According to
Wimmer (1997), ethnic conflicts arise when there are fights over which group of people the state should belong to, in the process of state formation. The British established the Police and
Military forces in Nigeria to “maintain law and order by suppressing riots, strikes and revolts and enforce colonial rule” (Yusuf, 2018, p14). Decolonisation of the Nigeria justice system
33 was initiated by General Abdusalami Abubakar to revoke various military laws that inhibited political and civil rights. However, the colonial traditional justice system was not eliminated, as the democratic constitution was drafted by a few members appointed by the Abubakar regime without public discourse (Yusuf, 2018, p16). The present democratic regime in Nigeria led by President Muhammadu Buhari, at the time of writing places primordial sentiments at the very core of his style of governance (Oni, n.d., p18; Amannah and Adeyeye, 2018; Idike et al., 2019). Ethnicity and religion are major problems in state-building in Nigeria. Aside from major appointments to people from the same geographical and ethnic region of the Executive
President, nation-building is focused on party loyalties promoting conflicts and self- aggrandisement (Oni, n.d., p18). This political style of leadership is one of the consequences of colonial integration in the form of nation-state hegemony model, which led to recent agitations for restructuring, in other to achieve true federalism (Naanen, 1995; Omoruyi, 2000;
Osaghae, 2000; Ikelegbe, 2001; Amadi and Daniel, 2017; Akpan and Nwokah, 2018; Abbas and Wakili, 2018; Abada and Okafor, 2018; Babalola, 2019; Tochukwu and Nwafor-Orizu,
2019).
Nigeria is a sovereign nation-state (Watts, 2004), with over 350 Ethnic tribes (Ojo,
2013, p86). Leadership had been rotating in the hands of the northerners, because, the rulers of the British colony instilled knowledge of empowerment to the northerners, stating that state power should lie within the north because the colonial administration had acquired a vast portion of land from the northern region (Ibhawoh, 2002, p73). Governor Egerton introduced the Seditious Offences Ordinance in 1909 as a result of growing press attacks on land acquisition by the colonial administration and increase in water rates in Lagos which disrupted public order especially in the southern regions (Ibid.). The colonial administration advised the northerners to resist any form of state power from the south-east – the Ibo speaking ethnic tribe of Nigeria (Wimmer, 1997). Ethnocentrism, elitism and mediocrity lie predominantly in the
34 northern region (Idike et al., 2019), where there is a struggle for dominance for leadership
positions, and also the recycling of old politicians, who led the nation with nation-state model
of hegemony (Omodia, 2007; Ogundiya, 2010).
The recycling of old politicians also led to indigenous protest groups in Nigeria agitating for restructuring (Tyungu and Koko, 2018, p25). A social movement group such as the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) carry out regular protests calling for the eastern region of Nigeria to have their own nation, which will in turn help them to make their own laws and control their state’s resources (Ibid.). The nation-state model of leadership, where the Federal
Government of Nigeria controls the resources of the thirty-six states and creates annual budgets, disseminates funds at its discretion which has diverse effects on the ordinary citizens, contributes to limitation of press freedom in Nigeria (Ukonu, 2005, p149). The liberal authoritarian style of governance makes it difficult for the traditional press to be free, the state controls such Government-owned media houses (Ibid.).
The birth of social media brought hope to the ordinary citizen in Nigeria, as it brought forth opportunities for any individual to air their views towards the state on social media, thereby creating citizen journalists in the public sphere (Freeelon et al., 2018, p13; Neuberger et al., 2018). Human rights activists also utilised the capability and affordability of social media to communicate freely with ordinary citizens in protest mobilisation (Ibid.). However, the spread of fake news and hate speech on social media platforms increased due to the features of social media (Huang and Benyoucef, 2015). For instance, the Igbos were offered three months ultimatum on Facebook to leave the northern region of Nigeria on June 7, 2017 by the Arewa
Youths Consultative Forum (Auwul, 2018, p5).
Similarly, the ex-governor of Imo state Rochas Okorocha incited hate speech on the
IPOB protest group on Facebook. It reads: “let me assure you that no Ibo person or man is in support of secession and people must see this as a childish act. We must stand up to address it
35 before it becomes a national problem. As for us leaders in that area, it will be insane for anyone
to think that the IPOB leader will ask us to follow him to seek secession” (Auwal, 2018, p6).
1.0.8 STATE FRAGILITY
In global economic relations, Nigeria ranks seventh in global exports, since oil is its major natural resource (Ojo and Iro, 2013, p82). Ham and Jun (2008 cited in Ojo and Iro, 2013), suggests this development as an element of global order in nation-building because it fosters global socio-economic competitiveness, public diplomacy and promotion of soft power.
Investment capital, foreign aid and tourism revenue are derived from the good image of a nation, which in turn promotes global presence as regards culture preservation and influence in politics. The image of a country determines its success in the global arena (Anholt, 1998).
The struggle for global competitiveness pushes nations to formulate policies in a bid to positively foster global perceptions to realise revenue from the global market. For instance, domestic cultural revitalisation is a springboard for soft power in China through the promotion of film productions in China’s Shangai Expo to boost international image (Barr, 2012).
Features of a fragile state according to Osaghae (2007, p693) involves;
Weak, ineffective and unstable political institutions and bad governance, conducive to loss of state autonomy; informalisation, privatisation of state, personal and exclusionary rule; neo-patrimonialism, and prebendal politics. Inability to exercise effective jurisdiction over its territory, leading to the recent concept of ungoverned territory. Legitimacy crisis, occasioned by problematic national cohesion, contested citizenship, violent contestation for state power, perennial challenges to the validity and viability of the state, and massive loss and exit of citizens through internal displacement, refugee flows, separatist agitation, civil war and the like. Unstable and divided population, suffering from a torn social fabric, minimum social control, and pervasive strife that encourage exit from rather than loyalty to the state. Undeveloped institutions of conflict management and resolution, including credible judicial structures, which pave the way for recourse to conflict-ridden, violent, non-systemic and extra-constitutional ways in which to articulate grievances and seek redress. Pervasive corruption, poverty, and low levels of economic growth and development, leading to lack of fiscal capacity to discharge basic functions of statehood, including most importantly, obligations to citizens such as protection from diseases like AIDS and guarantees of overall human security.
36 Theorists represent the struggle to separate from postcolonial legacies and internal conflicts in
Africa as African statehood (Reno, 1999; Collier, 2007). Africa’s inability to carry out its statutory duties such as the welfare, protection and meeting the needs of the people is as a result of postcolonialism, and as such termed as a fragile state (Young, 2004; Osaghae, 2007).
Colonial integration in Africa promoted racialist ideology and practice characterised by decentralised and centralised forms of oppression with implications for subjects and citizens
(Mamdani, 2018, p28). Nigerians have been referred to in the past as criminally minded by social critics to its image. Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State, referred to Nigeria as a country of scammers due to the state of Internet fraud in the nation (Glickman, 2005, p461).
The criminalisation of African states gained wider recognition within state character and colonial discourse. It focused on decolonisation involving a relationship with conflict and ethnicity surrounding development, peace and governance (Pottier, 2009). Prototypes of colonial empires are largely recognised in Africa, Latin America and Asia as under the disguise of development, and natural resources were carted away to build empires, initiating false beginning in the development of Africa (Dumont, 1988; Arrighi, 2002). The coercive nature of the state in the cultural nexus of society and the infringement of individual privacy is as a result of colonialism (Nduka, 2006, p8). The elites carry out nation-building without stepping aside from colonial integration. At independence, quality of life and emancipation was promised as a new political order mirroring the old feudal system (Ibid.).
Culture clash is a challenge in Sub Saharan Africa nation-building and national unity, as development and modernity were built on “faulty fissures of amalgamation of different nationalities tribes and tongues” (Ojo and Iro, 2013, p86). In 1914, Nigeria became a colony of the British Empire with over 350 ethnic groups and 300 languages including Igbo, Hausa-
Fulani, Yoruba, Edo and Ijaw, which made leadership and management for development and national identity a difficult task (Ibid.). The language of the British Empire – English became
37 the official language of Nigeria, due to the nation’s ethnic distrust and fear of dominance of a
particular language, hence, the non-existence of a mother tongue lingua franca (Ibid.).
Svensson (2007) suggests the potential for disorder and sectarian violence is as a result of a
large diversity of people in a country. Prebendalism and corruption in the African state are as
a result of primordial sentiments such as ethnicity and religion, manipulated by elites in pursuit
of sectional and personal agendas (De Oliveira, 2007). This practice which connotes “disorder
as a political instrument” recycles elites in positions of power (Chabal and Daloz, 1999).
Nationalists mobilised anti-state campaigns to be independent of colonialism, yet,
followership and leadership remain a problem. Hence, the practice of blaming only the leaders
prevails (Ojo, 2013, p86). Osaghae (2002) pointed out that externalisation of public service
was pervasive in the Igbo communities, with the semantics of olu-oyibo – the white man’s job.
The negative perceptions remain prevalent and persistence in the structuring and conditioning of the behaviour of the led and leaders in the internalised state, owing to Nigeria’s colonial legacy as a result of governance crisis (Utomi, 2004 cited in Ojo and Iro, 2013, p86). The
Nigerian state declines daily as a result of the paradox of post-colonialism in Africa. The elites do not bother about the fragility of the state, as they carry on with their quest for wealth in providing private security, the building of houses and roads (Amuwo, 2009; Lewis, 1996, p79-
103; Ihonvbere, 1994, p42-60).
The contradicting nature of the state with minimal means of survival leads to desperation and low disposition. Violent agitations from unemployed youths and anti-social behaviours such as armed robbery – where youths create gangs to steal private and government
properties and militancy – where youths engage in kidnapping local and foreign workers are
as a result of sourcing alternative means for survival (Onovo, 2009; Osuma and Aghedo, 2011).
Social media is utilised in the recruitment of people for disorder and crime, which is often one
of the reasons why the Nigeria state and its establishments' regulate citizens’ online
38 communication as a means of social control (Ibid.). The threat of crime and disorder are useful tools in managing state power, for crafting responses to emerging areas of concern, and for justifying an appropriate and measured response either in legislative terms or using physical coercive violence. The legislative grounds upon which state violence may be enacted over a population needs to be very carefully measured in nations that process democratic tendencies.
There needs to be some form of consent if such violence is to be deemed acceptable and not arbitrarily enacted. However, the disorder goes beyond political structure for both the leaders and the led as it highlights the criminalisation of the state as a result of colonial legacies where power was given to “colonial officials to deal with perceived threats to law and order” and the suppression of “nationalist activism” especially in the Southern regions (Ibhawoh, 2002, p74).
According to Okereafoeze (2006), Nigeria’s criminal justice system practice colonial legacies, as the laws of Britain are still practised in the judiciary. For example, the Ajalla
Kingdom of the Igbo ethnic group imbibes the colonial justice system in their traditional justice system (Ibid.). The women of Ajalli kingdom judges cases the Eze (King) is unable to handle through “umuada” – a gathering of female members of the community. When a case is unable to receive judgement from the local community, it is then passed on to the Magistrate,
Customary, High, Court of appeal and Supreme court of Nigeria. This form of justice system poses four problems for the community. They are:
1) The social, cultural, political and economic costs and myriad other problems associated with the duplication of the justice systems and the concurrent application and management of the two justice systems with divergent cultural and legal traditions and goals. 2) The average Nigerian lacks the opportunity to understand and appreciate the two justice systems, especially where they differ or complement one another. 3) The native system and the foreign justice system sometimes appear to be in competition with one another thereby undermining their social control functions in the community. 4) Many Nigerians are alienated from the foreign justice system because it does not reflect the culture, traditions and religion of the Nigerian people (Ibid).
39 The problems arisen from the colonial legacies in Nigeria’s transitional justice system (Yusuf,
2017; 2018) as articulated by Okereafoezeke (2006) prompts this thesis to support the call for
decolonisation of the Nigeria polity (Ugwuanyi, 2020)
1.1 RESEARCH QUESTION
Is the lack of clearly defined data protection laws in Nigeria contributing to restrictions on
freedom of speech and the problems associated with the decolonisation of the Nigeria polity?
1.2 PRIMARY AIM
This thesis examines the regulations for freedom of speech in virtual environments in
Nigeria. The primary goal of this work is the analysis of primary and secondary data. The
primary data includes semi-structured interviews of Nigerian Human Rights Activists and
corpus policy documents of legislative bills and Acts within 2008-2018. Secondary data
include journals, books, articles, and online newspapers to draw conclusions about public
behaviour within the overall contexts of debates over the criminal legislations of social media.
The primary aim of the thesis was underpinned by collecting anonymised data and using
analytical methods such as Critical Discourse Analysis for examining legislative texts and
investigative reportage.
1.3 OBJECTIVES
1. To examine the rationale behind the lack of data protection laws in Nigeria
2. To explore the socio-political changes that led to recent technological innovations in
the surveillance and criminalisation of dissenting public discourse on social media
3. To examine the weaknesses of social media regulations and paucity of data protection
for Nigerian citizens
4. To consider the impact of social media legislation on protest groups
1.4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
40 In gathering data for this study, a qualitative approach to fieldwork was employed, including the primary data of interviews and corpus policy documents. Secondary data include journals, books, articles, online journals, online newspapers and online articles. This thesis’ goal is geared towards obtaining a holistic understanding of Nigeria’s post-colonial polity. As such, researching primary and secondary data answers the research question. A detailed explanation of the methodology is presented in Chapter four. Berger and Luckman (1966) suggest that to make subjective meanings of the world, symbols represented by language and images are utilised in the construction and deconstruction of knowledge. This notion informs this thesis on the selection of text for the knowledge construction of human reality through the development of Faircloughian realist approach to Critical Discourse Analysis which aims at investigating social wrongs and suggesting solutions (2008; 2013). In other words, this study is a transdisciplinary analysis of the relations of social media legislations, resistance texts and professional discourses to proffer solutions to social wrongs that are related to surveillance in the Nigeria polity.
1.5 ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE
This thesis reveals the implication of lack of legislation to protect the data of social media users in Nigeria, since Babajide and Odumesi (2016), suggests the need for a further study into “citizens’ perception on Internet control and surveillance in Nigeria. Furthermore, the thesis contributes to knowledge by filling a gap in Spivak et al. (2006) text on “the need for transitional justice theory and praxis to engage with the colonial legacy in postcolonial societies” exemplified in chapter six. Similarly, this thesis develops Yusuf (2018) opinion of
“conditioning and shaping transitional justice processes by engaging with the implications of colonisation in non-settler colonial contexts, the legacies of colonialism, including the impunity of the period” exemplified in Chapter five. Additionally, the thesis contributes to knowledge by revealing Greenleaf (2019) notion of the need for a Data Protection Act that is
41 free from state interference. Methodically, the thesis contributes to knowledge through the uniqueness of the methods employed in the unit of analysis such as; Faircloughian discourse analysis of corpus policy documents of bills and Acts from 2008 to 2019 and semi-structured interviews of human rights activists in Nigeria.
1.6 THESIS STATEMENT
This thesis employs Jessop’s theory of state power (Jessop, 2017) to examine how the
Nigeria state and its establishments maintain order. Freedom of speech has become strictly regulated in Nigeria. The study draws from research into the criminal legislation of social media and utilises instant literature from surveillance studies, social and political theory, post- colonialism, critical accounts of resistance, and the study of social movements. The thesis argues that without clearly defined data protection laws, the use of social media (as a platform through which to critique the state), becomes the means for gathering intelligence and enacting punitive justice over dissenting social actors.
1.7 SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS
Chapter one presented a background to the study, its aims, objectives and contribution to knowledge and fulfilled one of the thesis’ objectives by examining the rationale behind lack of data protection laws in Nigeria in the background of the study. Chapter two presents literature on surveillance studies, as anticipated by Hayes (2012) on the emergence of an industrial surveillance complex. Chapter three presents literature on social movements, Internet
Censorship in Nigeria and protest towards the arrest of human rights defenders in Nigeria.
Chapter four presents the research design, nuances of critical discourse analysis, and the method employed in the analysis of primary data. It includes; a transdisciplinary cultural, political economy discourse, which stems from three disciplines; critical discourse analysis, political economy analysis and a theory of the state (Fairclough, 2008, p7; Jessop, 2017; Yusuf,
2018). Chapter five presents the analysis of corpus policy documents of Nigerian Bills and
42 Acts surrounding state censorship from 2008 to 2019. Chapter six presents an analysis of interviews with human rights activists in Nigeria and contributes to knowledge by revealing the social implication of “British colonial hegemony on the conditions of rights and liberties in the Nigeria polity” (Yusuf, 2018). Chapter seven presents the conclusion, findings and recommendations of the thesis.
43 CHAPTER TWO
DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE
2.0 INTRODUCTION
The Internet in recent times has contributed to everyday visibility through its
asynchronous and ubiquitous nature, and as such, it is vital to address the patterns by which
people communicate on virtual environments (Hermida, 2010; Mathieson and Leafman, 2014;
Mick and Middlebrook, 2015; LSI, 2016). This innovation promotes prompt communication
in today’s contemporary societies, as it allows for the free flow of information through the
sharing of photos, audio, videos, tweets, posting on social media threads, debating on issues
cutting across politics, science, culture, and so on (Ibid.). In performing such acts, it is essential
to note that we are indirectly feeding data to marketers, intelligence agencies and hackers just
by “contacting electronically” (Lyon, 2015). It is as a result of the United States access to
almost every fibre optic cable in the globe, which passes through the United Kingdom
(Timberg and Nakashima, 2013). The Internet brought forth a community where citizens of
different races communicate with one another. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, Linkedin and Snapchat bring people together in a virtual world, and aid
communication cutting across social, institutional, educational, political, cultural and
economical settings (Hermida, 2010; Mathieson and Leafman, 2014; Mick and Middlebrook,
2015; LSI, 2016).
Some researchers emphasise that it is rarely the social media company that invades your
privacy, but rather, user-generated content, as suggested by Determann (2012). He states that
“social media platform providers are not directly responsible for user-generated privacy
invasions. They claim broad exemptions from contributory liability under existing laws that
intended to protect Internet service providers”. Surveillance involves the “collection, storage,
processing and assessment of data about humans or group of humans by an actor to advance
44 goals by violence exerted with the help of the collected information upon the humans under watch” (Fuchs, 2011). An example is a case where a Nazis used Census data and calculating machines to determine who had Jewish origins and should be deported and killed in the Nazi extermination camps (Black, 2001).
Lyon (1999, p7 cited in Wilson, 2012) is of the opinion that military surveillance is a beginning point for surveillance scholars since soldiers were drilled and monitored “to produce machine-like armed forces that were highly disciplined and controlled”. Civilian spheres continued the practice of military surveillance modes of operations through bureaucratic administrations in their everyday life (Dabdejerm 1990; 2006 cited in Wilson, 2012). In conceptualising how the modern Nigeria state authorities continually engage in the war against terror (Oyewole, 2015; Falode, 2016) and the acquisition of digital surveillance technology such as Wise Intelligence Technology (Privacy International, 2014) for military and civilian applications, the below quote exemplifies the struggle. Wilson (2012) notes:
The quest for information and intelligence to provide strategic advantage has also provided a catalyst for the development of surveillance technologies ranging from the utilisation of aerial balloon reconnaissance in the nineteenth century through to the development of radar and signal interception, global positioning systems, thermal sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles and satellites. Reliance on information technologies for warfare has been a defining feature of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RAM) that applies information systems of control, to military engagement. Theorists such as Paul Virilio have also argued that post industrial societies have moved into a state of perpetual war preparedness, whereby the agenda of politics and science is channelled into military goals. In such a scenario, new surveillance technologies are continually developed and trialled in an ongoing simulation of war. The transference of technologies and techniques of surveillance developed for military objectives, particularly subsequent to the War on Terror, to the civilian sector continues apace and is evident in police work, border control, the labour market, medical and legal institutions and in terms of entertainment and communications. Nevertheless, the relationship between military and civilian surveillance remains dialectical, with civilian innovations increasingly being investigated for potential military application.
In recent studies, virtual institutions sell their users’ information/data to marketers and surveillance agencies (Radaelli et al., 2018). This revelation became widespread as a result of
Edward Snowden’s document leaks on NSA surveillance in 2013 (MacAskill et al., 2013).
45 Snowden’s disclosures created a public awareness which in turn affected a lot of Internet
companies; this development increased awareness of the digital surveillance state (Lyon,
2014). Similarly, this disclosure gives rise to some critiques surrounding the privacy of
personal data, as Lyon argues that personal data is gradually “losing its person” (Lyon, 2015).
Snowden’s disclosure led to the establishment of the Intercept – a website that documents news surrounding surveillance, security, technology and social justice (Zuboff and Klein, 2019). The
Intercept is the result of Glen Greenwald’s implications in the Snowden leaks with Laura
Poitras. The confiscation of PC’s at the Guardian (for whom Greenwald was formerly working) may have prematurely ended his time at the Guardian, resulting in a switch to an online news format (Book, 2017).
The novelty of blogs and social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
and Snapchat give rise to social media surveillance (Fuchs, 2012). Social media surveillance
conducted by the Police and by companies is geared towards behaviour discipline on set rules or punishing people that go against set rules. Fuchs (2013) asserts; social media surveillance is a “techno-social process in which human actors make use of surveillance technologies for monitoring human activities on social media”. Hayes (2012), suggests that the “prevalent danger of the intensification and extension of surveillance via social media is that we create a society that is totalitarian in the double – by being a dictatorship of the market and capitalist logic as well as a state dictatorship” (Ibid.).
Hayes argues that a “surveillance-industrial complex is emerging, which poses considerable threats to society” (Hayes, 2012) and recent surveillance technological advancements have proved this point (Privacy International, 2014; Biddle, 2018; 2019). Fuchs and Dyer-Witheford (2013) argue that “we need critical Internet and social media studies”, thus, this research. Similarly, they assert that “it is practically important that tendencies towards the creation of a totalitarian surveillance society are resisted. Movements and civil society that
46 engage in this resistance are supported” (Ibid.). An example is the State of Surveillance project
operated by Privacy International and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that has published
a database of companies that sell communication surveillance technologies.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation operates a section on its websites that documents
problems of surveillance on social networking sites (Ibid.). Post 9/11 brings the vision of a
surveillance society a reality. It brought about increased surveillance industries. Most nations,
after the 9/11, tend to be under constant surveillance following Edward Snowden’s revelation
of mass surveillance (Galic, Timan and Koops, 2016). Post 9/11 political-economic and socio-
technical responses helped change surveillance (Genosko and Thompson, 2006). The
usefulness of the amount of personal data gathered by state and non-state actors is questionable
to consumers because they are unaware of the particular data collected (Gandy, 1993). A
charity organisation fighting the right to privacy across the world known as Privacy
International, aided in “revealing the United Kingdom’s legal justification for its policy
allowing unlimited social media surveillance” (Mosendz, 2017).
According to Goodrum (2013), the choice to hand over personal data - voluntary
disclosure can be more harmful than state or corporate monitoring - intrusive snooping.
Increasingly, hiring organisations to make decisions on potential hires based on their online presence, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat posts, photos or tweets, this form of practice is intrusive. When employees share information publicly online, negative consequences can follow. For employers to ascertain staff personalities and online behaviours outside the corporate environment, employees are constantly checked (Ibid.).
Moreover, Zuboff (2015; Zuboff and Klein, 2019) argues that surveillance is the new capitalism, and it is influencing our behaviour through its preferred outcome (Klein and Zuboff,
2019). She asserts, “If you have nothing to hide, then you are nothing” (Ibid). Similarly, her arguments lie within a new frontier of power by technology companies working with
47 superpower states such as China, to design software programs that not only violate citizens’
human rights but stores massive information about users. Since states need to carry out social
control, and technology companies need to make more profits, they adopt a business model,
that not only focuses on gathering data from the Internet but from all smart wares, in secret and
public spaces. In her talk with Klein on the rise of surveillance capitalism (Ibid.). She argues,
“surveillance capitalism has overtaken the fourth estate – and we need to reinstate the fourth estate for its accountability for the words that we publish, something that has been lost, and which is a catastrophic loss”. Similarly, she suggests that the solution to surveillance capitalism are strong legal laws to technology companies, to stop them from disrupting online communication or gathering massive data from citizens through software programs.
2.1 FIVE EYES ALLIANCE/DATAVEILLANCE
Under the terms of the UKUSA Agreement which was circumvented by five nations,
Britain spies on Americans, and Americans spy on British citizens, so there is a standard agreement on the trade of data between nations (Campbell, 1999). However, this innovation is checked constantly by the five eyes alliance nations - UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand following the rules provided on interception. This agreement intended to create a
single goal and a large global intelligence organisation, sharing a common goal and a common
agenda, spying on the world and sharing data. New forms of social media and Internet
surveillance are constantly evolving, so it is necessary to continue to study these developments
in a critical way (Fuchs, 2013). Clarke coined Dataveillance in 1988, which portrays the limit
for technological advancements to get to already different and incoherent information to
conjure new methods of surveillance (Clarke, 1988).
Some Corporations monopolise “Big Data for illicit profits and unscrupulous
government administrators may use big data to manipulate their citizens’ rights to privacy to
foster a digital surveillance state” (Aikat, 2015). Ethical big data mining may include analyses
48 of population census data to identify low-income regions seeking economic aid, GPS tracking, warnings about natural disasters, insights into consumer behaviour based on web-browsing trails of online shopping trends, crime and job opportunities, and so on (Ibid.). Chhabra and
Rahman argue “a commitment to ethical values and best practice sustains Big Data Mining”
(Management Association, 2014).
Surveillance constantly undergoes change, different kinds of data are now being captured and used in different ways (Van Dijck, 2014). Schneir (2012) suggests big data as the new big pharma/oil, since data in the 21st century may be commensurate with eighteenth- century oil. He further states that; “Big data practices increasingly tilt surveillance operations to focus on the future more than on the present and the past, which places weight on surveillance managing consequences rather than research on understanding causes of social problems such as crime and disorder” (Ibid.). Deleuze (1992) acknowledges the shift from the state to other surveillance agencies, from individuals to dividuals and from discipline to control. Another approach to surveillance is the “anticipatory approach that is less concerned with an individual premeditating and pinpointing potential dangers” (deGoede, 2014). Science,
Technology and Society approach characterise “welfare system use of Big Data practices”
(Maki, 2011). Bauman and Lyon (2013) argue, “Digital surveillance has a seemingly symbiotic relationship with the kind of liquidity visible in contemporary social, political and economic arrangements that are short-term”. The liquidity of surveillance is significant in the social and political realm as at the level of dataflows (Lupton, 2013).
According to Ball and Snider (2013), national security is a business goal as much as a political one, and there is a revolving door between the two in the world of surveillance practices. Gitelman (2013) argues “raw data” is an oxymoron stating that data have always been “cooked”. The public debate generally commences around the question of privacy in
Western liberal legal traditions. The ethics of Big Data practices must be found that deals with
49 the problem of the increasing gap between data and individuals (Amoore and Stoddart, 2014).
McGrath (2004) sets out a “surprising alternative: a world in which we have much to gain from
the experience of being watched”. McGrath’s notion is quite different from the common
concepts; he believes that our evolving relation to space – our participation in the evolution of
surveillance space opens up new prospects for society. Similarly, “constant scrutiny by
surveillance cameras are usually seen as an invasion of privacy, and at worst, an infringement of human rights” (Ibid.). Calvert (2000) focuses on the “balance of protection between individuals’ rights to privacy and the Media’s First Amendment Protection through a careful study of featured cases”. He emphasises that “although spectatorship and sensationalism are far from new phenomena, today, a confluence of factors – legal, social, political and technological pushes voyeurism to the forefront of our image-based world” (Ibid.).
2.2 SURVEILLANCE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Before PRISM, there was ECHELON; the top-secret military Surveillance program, which sort keywords and text by a global network of satellites from undersea cables and land- based microwave towers (Burghadt, 2011). The National Security Agency in the United States ran ECHELON’s operations through global communications satellites in processing and intercepting international communications (Campbell, 2000). The messages are relayed and analysed to potential customers in different continents. Its stations were also run by New
Zealand, Britain, Australia and Canada (Ibid.). PRISM intercepts millions/petabytes of data on individuals hourly, which brings about concern for privacy (Greenwald, 2013; Bauman et al.,
2014).
Although most nations are in support of any form of government assistance in fighting terrorism, which is a major security issue globally, some individuals want privacy in their daily activities (Ganor, 2002; Carother, 2003). This challenge urges a theorist Gary Marx (2016, p23) to argue that privacy versus security is a long-fought war. He suggests that surveillance
50 is both positive and negative, because, on the one hand, it tends to act as a tool for protection and on the other hand, it pries on people’s privacy. Lyon referred to this opposite role of surveillance as “Janus-faced” (Bennett, 2003). Similarly, “Surveillance can obviously invade privacy, surveillance can also be the means of protecting privacy” (Ibid.). In other words, the protection of the national security of a state is paramount to protecting the state’s privacy.
Performing surveillance on citizens to protect national security or ensuring the state’s secrets are not exposed is a means of privacy protection of a state (Gross, 2004; Savov, 2016).
Contrastingly, in performing such act on civic spaces, personal data are gathered, which is a breach to personal privacy (Lear and Reynolds, 2003; Popp and Poindexter, 2006).
Notable examples of the industrial surveillance complex in Britain is the data analysis warehouse in Wythenshawe near Manchester. It was established with the motive of dealing with threats to terror, trafficking, hazards, illegal immigration, crime and so on (Ball et al.,
2015, p15), because, the Snowden’s revelations prompted technology giants such as Facebook,
Yahoo, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn and Microsoft to write an open letter to states to limit infringement of freedom of speech. They wrote to world leaders because, the PRISM program enabled the NSA to collect 98% of consumer data from Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook,
Skype, AOL, YouTube and PalTalk (Ball et al., 2015, p19).
Government Communications Head Quarters (GCHQ) - the UK’s SIGINT (Signals
Intelligence) agency (Shubber, 2013), routinely intercepted submarine fibre-optic cables containing private communications of millions of British residents in Summer 2013 accessing
21 petabytes of data. This disclosure came barely weeks after the government’s shelving of the
Draft Communications Data Bill in April 2013. GCHQ had effectively obtained in secret what
Parliament intended not to sanction by law (Don’t Spy on Us, 2014). It is a fundamental rule of law in any democracy that “people must know how the law is being applied, so they can hold public officials to account for any mistakes as well as take an informed view as to whether
51 the law needs changing” (Ibid.). The law needs to contain strict safeguards when public officials use secret powers to violate the fundamental right to privacy. Still, unfortunately, this is no longer the case.
TEMPORA is “a GCHQ (Government Communication Headquarters) program that creates large scale ‘Internet buffer’ storing Internet content for three days and metadata for up to thirty (30) days” (Sankey, 2014). GCHQ conducts indiscriminate, dragnet surveillance by intercepting fibre-optic cables carrying global communications that pass through the UK, via the TEMPORA programme (Open Rights Group, n.d.). Internet users in the UK and around the globe will have their communications intercepted as they interact with global service providers. The GCHQ project has, since 2008, built potentials and “now claims to provide the biggest internet access” of any intelligence agency in the Five Eyes alliance of eavesdropping agencies. In 2011 more than 39bn events in 24 hours were recorded producing “larger amounts of metadata collection than the NSA" (Ibid.).
2.3 NEW FORMS OF DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE
52
Fig.1 Alexa’s surveillance practices (Lin, 2018).
Stanford’s law school centre for Internet and society director describes such monitoring practices as integral to the state since accent data surveillance assists in determining if a user
53 comes from a certain religious or ethnic group, such as Arabic to trace/link roots to terrorism.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) suggest that data access can be utilised in the control
of immigration (Lin, 2018). However, Amazon’s ring security miniature cameras aid the Police
in apprehending fraudsters in homes. Moreover, this form of monitoring practices has positive benefits, as it aids in safeguarding properties in homes. The Intercept received intelligence
reports in 2016 that Amazon shared its S3 cloud storage with videos of sensitive unencrypted
files with a Ukraine-based research and development team. Additionally, the team gained
access to the database of every ring security camera client around the globe through the linkage
of each video file. Similarly, in the privacy policy of ring, it is not stated anywhere that ring
staff would have access to the video or database. On the 11th of January 2019, Yassi Shahmiri
– Ring’s spokesperson denied the reports on staff sharing sensitive data. In his statement, “Ring
employees never have and never did provide employees with access to live streams of their
Ring devices” (Ibid.).
On February 8 2019, the Intercept reported that “Amazon is building the tools of authoritarian surveillance that advocates, activists, community leaders, politicians, and experts have repeatedly warned” (Greenwald, 2019). However, the CEO of Amazon – Jeff Bezos’s privacy was violated through the assistance of hidden cameras in the iPhone, as his illicit sex escapade with his mistress was revealed. This development played a major role in his wife filing for a divorce. Could being a victim of the surveillance state prompt Jeff Bezos to limit his authoritarian surveillance powers? His privacy was violated using surveillance technology innovation. Left-wing politicians and collective agitations by advocates, community leaders, and activists aided in the cancellation of Jeff Bezos’s establishment of a second headquarters in New York (Lennard, 2019). Jeff Bezos – who at the time of writing is the world’s richest man was compelled to desist from establishing “a corporate-government power nexus” through the assistance of mass resistance (Ibid.). According to the reports, “the plan’s thwarting offers
54 a lesson in the possibility of forceful collective struggle against seemingly unbeatable Goliaths.
It also proves the need for left-wing politicians and organisers to challenge and replace conservative, capitalist Democrats if we are to wrest control of neighbourhoods, cities and public resources away from corporate interests and towards the good of existing communities”
(Ibid.).
Google’s censorship technology in China code-named Dragonfly was resisted by the
World’s leading human rights organisations such as; the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
Reporters without Borders, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights in
China, the Centre for Democracy and Technology and PEN International (Gallagher, 2019a) through an open letter to CEO of Google – Sundar Pichai. In their statement, Dragonfly infringes on privacy rights and freedom of expression of Internet users in the nation. According to the open letter, in Dragonfly’s modes of operation, while communicating with Google search engine, some contents are censored, such as democracy, political dissidents, human rights, free speech, and peaceful protests. As soon as such phrases or words are inputted, it would lead to no results from the search engine, because China’s communist party regime deems such contents as sensitive information, and as such should be censored. As at the time of reporting, public statement on China’s Dragonfly censorship was not issued. According to The Intercept and Amnesty International researchers, Google refused to respond to its reporters on questions surrounding the Chinese Dragonfly surveillance program (Ibid.).
Google’s human rights team insisted they would not comment on Chinese censorship.
However, such censorship practices go against Google’s human rights policies, as they are a member of Global network initiative comprising of human rights groups, academics and coalition of companies with set principles on the protection of privacy and freedom of expression. Additionally, Google’s search platform would share people’s search histories, and phone numbers of Chinese users will be linked using search engine records (Ibid.).
55 Surprisingly, most Google’s staff were against Dragonfly’s surveillance program, and one of
its senior scientists resigned in September 2018, due to his concern over the loss of Google’s
values through the powers of Dragonfly. Google is the largest search engine in the world and
ought to defend human rights (Gallagher, 2019b). The CEO defended the petitions on
Dragonfly, by revealing to the public, that the software program is just an experiment.
However, the Intercept gained access to Google’s leaked transcript, which revealed its secret
plans to launch Dragonfly between January and April 2019 (Ibid.).
In the same vein, tech companies in the United States are assisting China to strengthen
its authoritarian surveillance state. Over 200 million people in China have their Internet
activities monitored through artificial intelligence techniques by the Open Power Foundation
– a coalition with IBM, Google top executives, and Semptian – a Chinese based organisation
(Gallagher, 2019b), according to a source from an employee. This development confirms how
China has recruited Western powers in strengthening its authoritarian state. However,
Semptian carries out a major part of its activities through iNext – an organisation in China, and
they operate from the same office. A source of the Intercept confirmed that Semptian through its front name iNext is conducting mass surveillance known as Aegis. In his statement, “Aegis provides a full view of the virtual world, allowing Government spies to see the connections of everyone in the country. The system also blocks certain information on the Internet from being visited, censoring content that the Government does not want citizens to see. This surveillance technique is adopted in targeting President Xi Jinping’s left-wing, human rights and pro- democracy agitators.
A previous Facebook executive – Yul Kwon, revealed how Facebook gathers massive data of users irrespective of Android’s functionalities, by requesting specific permission from users. In his statement, the development was an internal management decision to control “data
Facebook’s Android app had access to, to grant the software the ability to record a user’s text
56 messages and call history, to interact with Bluetooth beacons installed by physical stores, and
to offer better-customised friend suggestions, and news feed rankings” (Biddle, 2018). Users’
information can get to Facebook’s engineers if they opt-in to the dialogue screen of the Android
App that pops up to suggest users give consent to Facebook to share information. However,
Kwon suggested that Facebook’s engineers may find a way to upgrade users to the “log-
collecting version of the app” without permission from the Android’s operating system. This
discourse was not resolved through this revelation. Facebook collects users’ information
through Facebook Lite apps for Android and Messenger. Users protested on Twitter when they
received data Facebook collected, and Facebook claimed they gave permission.
According to confidential reports by The Intercept, Facebook social networking
platform enables 100 smartphone providers in 50 countries to monitor and violate users’ data
(Biddle, 2019b). This form of monitoring is achieved through third-party agreements when
users register on Facebook. Data collected includes; “Technical information about Facebook
members’ devices and the use of Wi-Fi and cellular networks, past locations, interests and social groups” (Ibid.). Instagram and Messenger also aid in the sourcing of data, since
Instagram is a sister company to Facebook with Facebook’s iOS and Android app. Such surveillance techniques promote companies on competitors’ customer information and
“racially targeted advertising”. It is not just your home Internet service provider that watches your everyday activities with the wider society, your telecommunication provider such as
AT&T, and T-mobile also have surveillance powers that monitors users’ everyday activities.
Facebook failed in the promise of anonymising users’ data, as recent intelligence reports revealed how Facebook enabled a North American phone carrier to target a specific, unnamed racial group through its Actionable Insight function. Similarly, this function aided in the surveillance of users’ creditworthiness, as one of Facebook’s advertising customers outside
57 the U.S excluded Facebook users from “promotional offers based on their credit” through
Actionable Insights by profiling customers of undesirable and desirable credit standings (Ibid.).
Aside from tech companies that assist in the building of an industrial surveillance complex, Hacktivist groups such as Anonymous and LulzSec contribute to spying practices
(Lee, 2018). In 2011, Lulzsec aided the FBI, through the assistance of its previous leader
Monsegur, in revealing the hackers behind Stratfor – “the world’s leading geopolitical intelligence platform with clients ranging from military agencies and defence contractors to global corporations that wanted to spy on activists”. Stratfor exposed leaked emails to
Wikileaks. Some of its leaks revealed how “Dow Chemical hired Stratfor to spy on the culture- jamming activist group – the Yes Men”. Similarly, the leak exposed how Coca Cola hired
Stratfor to “spy on activists associated with animal rights organisation PETA, and “Pulitzer
Prize-winning investigative journalist outfit ProPublica” (Ibid.). This growing trend of tech companies and social networking companies assisting the state and corporate organisations in performing surveillance to improve their functionalities as a body, suggests that power has moved from the state (Jessop, 2017), to a new frontier of power, as argued by Zuboff (2019).
In other words, the collaboration of tech companies and social networking companies in the creation of monitoring software and regulations on civic spaces exemplifies Jessop’s (2017, p13) notion of the shift from a “largely state-based government to network based-governance”.
The purchase of a surveillance system from an Israeli organisation Elbit Systems
Technology (Tafida and Dada, 2014) by the Nigerian Government, to snoop on all Internet activity, violates users’ privacy. The revelation of the interception of all forms of communication by Nigerian GSM service providers led to a lot of arrests. However, none led to convictions, in 2016 and 2017 (Emmanuel, 2014). They include; blogger Abubakar Usman who was arrested and held for two days for a “report accusing the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission of corruption” (Daily Post, 2016). Musa Azare, for criticising “the Bauchi
58 state governor on social media, though the governor himself demanded his release, citing his
support for freedom of expression” (Bella Naija, 2016). Blogger Jamil Mubai was arrested for
“using Twitter to criticize the Katsina state Governor’s purchase of coffins instead of paying
the outstanding salaries of civil servants” (Lailas Blog, 2016). Blogger Emenike Iroegbu, who
runs the Abia Facts online outlet, was arrested for allegedly harassing Abia State officials in
his articles (Ogundipe, 2016). Activist Aku Obidinma was arrested in November 2016 for
“critical comments he posted on Facebook about the Deputy Governor of Imo state”
(Olowookere, 2016). Kaduna State government arrested Maikori Audu in February 2017 for
“inciting tweets about citizens’ killings by herdsmen in Southern Kaduna” (Ogundipe, 2017).
Blogger Kemi Olunloyo was arrested in March 2017 for a post about a pastor’s alleged extra- marital affairs but was granted bail after one month (Akasike, 2017). In July 2017 the Katsina state police detained Danjuma, a journalist, who was released the next day without any official explanations, for posts on Facebook “deemed critical of a local parliamentarian” (Oyelude,
2017).
2.4 NIGERIA’S SURVEILLANCE STATE
Nigeria gained independence in 1960 from the British colonial administration (Agbu,
2017; Altabef and Gaonkar, 2017). National security strengthened after the civil war in 1970, where Nigeria triumphed over the Biafrans, who fought for a separate nation from Nigeria
(Ashaolu, 2012). However, civil protests continued to emerge within various cadres of the state, seeking for freedoms from the then military state. In the 1980s and 1990s, citizens protested against the military leadership, which led to “brutality and assassination” from the state (Ibid.). Such brutal measures of the military state resulted in reducing public protests by aggrieved citizens, as some moved to seek asylum from neighbouring countries, while others remained silent (Morris, 1998).
59 In the early 2000s, insecurity emerged in the Niger Delta by environmental militants
protesting for community rights, due to the oil-rich nature of the region, which led to increasing
in the kidnapping, vandalizing of oil pipelines, and so on (Omotola, 2006). The state took
measures in strengthening security in the region which led to the death of many lives as a result of a gun battle between state security agents and the militants (Ikelegbe, 2005). Although the oil crisis in Nigeria contributed to the global increase in oil prices, the crisis was a global crisis, as other oil nations faced internal crises (Ashaolu, 2012). However, security strengthened due
to the continuous ethnic and religious tensions between Muslims widely based in the northern
regions and Christians mostly based in the southern region (Ibid.).
In 2002, growing ethnic and religious tensions brought about the “radical Islamic sect”,
with its leader as Mohammed Yusuf (Ashaolu, 2012). They operate under various aliases such
as “Muhajirun, Yusufi-yyah, Nigerian Taliban, Boko Haram and Jama’atu Ahl as-Sunnah il-
Da’awati wal-Jihad” (Ibid.). This sect at the time of writing continues to perform violent acts
and is the greatest challenge for security in Nigeria (Anyadike, 2013; Adam et al., 2018;
Stephen and Hamza, 2019). The militia is reputed to have connections with other Islamist terror
groups such as; Al-Qaeda and Al-Shabab (Cannon and Iyekekpolo, 2018; Eyo and Collins,
2018; Higazi and Mohammed, 2018). Boko Haram’s sophisticated violent attacks continue to
create concern for US Homeland Security, as they fear attacks on “Western targets in Nigeria”
(Ashaolu, 2012).
However, the membership of Boko Haram is unknown, as the militia takes advantage
of massive unemployment, marginalisation and poverty within the Northern territories as a
means for recruiting youths as members. This form of recruitment contributes to the difficulty
in phasing off the terrorist group from the nation since members of Boko Haram gather
information from everyday gathering in societies without dress codes (Ashaolu, 2012). Boko
Haram contributes to the strengthening of national security in Nigeria since independence.
60 Unlike the Biafrans in the military regimes that began a civil war, operating with uniforms, and the Niger Delta militants who carried out their operations from the creeks of the Niger Delta with uniforms, Boko Haram can be found in any societal settings. They post videos and pictures of their insurgency on social media (Bukarti, 2020). For example, the killings of 40 farmers in
Borno State was posted on social media by sending one of their members on a vehicle to
Maiduguri in order to get access to the Internet, since there is no Internet in the Sambisa Forest where they operate from (Ibid.). They cannot be easily identified (Ibid.), which poses a challenge for military surveillance of Nigeria (Aghedo and Osumah, 2012), as it is difficult for the military to monitor and arrest the members.
2.5 CRIME CONTROL IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Aside from crimes that threaten national security, other crimes exist in the Nigerian society such as illegal arms dealing, money laundering, fake drugs, human trafficking, drug dealings and so on (Ashaolu, 2012). This increasing crime rates in Nigeria is as a result of globalisation according to intelligence agencies. They assert; “today’s threats recognise no national boundaries, and must be addressed at the global, regional and national levels. No state, no matter how powerful, can claim to have the capacity to confront these threats alone” (Ibid.).
The Nigerian state employs the services of the Nigerian Immigration, the National Agency for
Food and drug administration, the Nigerian Police, the National Drugs law enforcement agency and so on, to ensure the safety of its borders.
2.5.1 SECURITY AGENCIES RESPONSIBLE FOR CRIME CONTROL IN
NIGERIA
2.5.2 The Nigeria Police Force
The 2004 Police Act established this security agency. S4 of the Act spells out their activities in safeguarding security. Their duties involve; “the apprehension of offenders, the preservation of law and order, the protection of life and property and the due enforcement of
61 laws and regulations with which they are directly charged” (Ashaolu, 2012). Additionally, they can perform their duties within or outside Nigeria concerning the Act, as required of the state.
They can also prosecute crimes directed by the Attorney General as provided in s23 of the 2004
Police Act. Their powers include; “power to arrest without warrant in given situations, powers to arrest without having a warrant in possession, the power to serve summons, general powers to search and detain suspects and powers to take the record for purposes of identification and measurements, photographs and fingerprints impression of all persons in lawful custody”.
Intelligence gathering unit in the Police Force is the “Federal Investigations and Intelligence
Bureau – FIIB and the Force Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Bureau – CID”, with functions of prosecuting criminals within and outside the nation and is the highest investigative arm in the establishment (Ibid.).
2.5.3 Joint Intelligence Board
The General Babaginda regime introduced the Joint Intelligence board security agency to improve the Nigerian security state, and three intelligence agencies were created under the
Joint Intelligence Board including the “Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Security Service and the National Intelligence Agency” (Ashaolu, 2012). JIB was set up under the Nigeria Police
Force to liaise with other intelligence agencies to protect national security, established under the National Security Adviser. The ways in which the JIB performs its operations is by gathering intelligence data collected by other agencies and pass it on to the National Security
Council with the chairman as the Chief Security Officer of Nigeria (who has the highest decision-making power). Moreover, the model is dysfunctional because, in as much as these agencies in Nigeria ought to work together to protect the security of the state, they often compete and hoard information. An example was when a Boko Haram member that was displaced from the group approached the Police with a piece of vital information concerning operations of Boko Haram. The Police did not act on the information, nor release the
62 information to other intelligence agencies, but rather arrested the Boko Haram member over a
year. The Defense Intelligence Agency got hold of the information and requested the Police to
hand over the member to their facility for interrogation. Still, the Police refused until the
intervention of the National Security Adviser. The Police however misinformed other agencies
that they had granted the Boko Haram member bail and have been released. However, it was
not the case, and the Boko Haram members organized jailbreaks and released their members
across the nation, which contributed to the present increased state of Boko Haram insurgency
in Nigeria (Ibid.). The rivalry of the Nigeria security agencies is exemplified with the above
example.
2.5.4 The Federal Investigations and Intelligence Bureau – FIIB
The FIIB was set up in 1986 and served as an intermediary agency to civilian
intelligence-gathering agencies such as the State security service and the National Agency.
FIIB is under-resourced, and as such, their activities are restricted. Directorates for logistics,
operations and administration was established under the FIIB with focus on investigations
(Ashaolu, 2012).
2.5.5 The States Security Service
The SSS works closely with the FIIB in intelligence gathering and protection of
national security. Established in 1986, the SSS reports to the National Security Council. It is
fully responsible for the protection of Senior Executive State Officers such as the “President,
Vice President, Visiting Heads of States, Senate President, Governors, and so on” (Ashaolu,
2012). The SSS performs its duties through “overt or covert collection of Intelligence on domestic threats using human or signal intelligence assets (HUMINT and SIGINT)” (Ibid.).
Similarly, they are responsible for measures to overcome such threats to the state in the protection of national security. For example, the SSS assists the Nigeria Customs Service in
63 pinpointing domestic threats in its borders with the use of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) which is time-consuming (Olukayode et al., 2018).
During the Abacha military regime (1993 to 1998), the state gathered intelligence on radical civil liberty organisations leaders (Sesay and Ukeje, 1997; Ojukwu and Shopeju, 2010; such as the “Academic Staff Union of Universities and the National Association of Nigerian students” (Ashaolu, 2012). The state employed the SSS to repress the press in the military regime and political opposition groups. In this civilian dispensation of leadership, the SSS duties have shifted from such practices due to Boko Haram insurgencies and the bombing of
Eagle Square during Nigeria’s 50th-anniversary celebration. Due to these recent threats to national security, the SSS strategised their modes of operations, ensuring people relate with them safely by “dropping their cloak of anonymity” (Ibid.). A recent report suggests that the
States Security Services (SSS), continues to parade its body as Department of Security Services
(DSS) unofficially since 2011. There has been no law to verify the establishment of DSS or the name change to DSS. Nigerian news reports in recent times referred to the SSS as DSS.
Similarly, human rights global reports up until 2013 addressed the DSS as SSS. In 2013, the
US States Department referred to the SSS as DSS. The PREMIUM TIMES newspaper in
Nigeria is the only newspaper outlet that refers to the States Security Service as SSS and thereby calls for a reversal of DSS to its initial term SSS as provided in the law, as this is a violation of the law (Ogundipe, 2017).
2.5.6 National Intelligence Agency (NIA)
The NIA is responsible for international intelligence and counterintelligence outside the shores of Nigeria. They protect national security outside Nigeria by gathering external information. Their major duties involve interpretation, accessing, analysing and monitoring of foreign intelligence. Closer attention is paid to neighbourhood threats, as Nigeria provides military resources for the running of the African-peace keeping Army – ECOMOG. However,
64 due to security threats from neighbouring countries, such as Chad and the Niger Republic being
responsible for the training of Boko Haram militia, the NIA strengthened their powers, which
led to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan calling for the closure of the Chad and Niger borders
(Ashaolu, 2012).
Depending on the subject of the Intelligence gathered, the NIA submits reports to
specific agencies responsible for handling various issues. The relevant agencies the NIA
provides reports to include; the Defence Intelligence Agency, the Office of the President,
National Security Adviser, Chief of Staff, Nigerian Immigration Services, State Security
Services, Inspector General of Police, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nigeria
Customs Services, the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency, and so on (Ibid.). The NIA
prepares yearly briefings and anticipates future security threats for Nigeria. CISSA, a
committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa, was created under the NIA to meet
up with the security threats of the twenty-first century. They are responsible for “the need to have a cooperate mechanism for information sharing, and also to proffer early-warning and pre-emptive solutions to the myriad of security challenges, such as terrorism, trans-border crimes, and mercenaries that are presently confronting the continent” (Ibid.).
2.5.7 The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA)
Military intelligence within and outside the shores of Nigeria is the responsibility of the
DIA. The DIA has a more significant action force than civilian intelligence agencies such as the SSS and the NIA (Ashaolu, 2012).
2.6 INTERNET CONTROL AGENCIES IN NIGERIA
2.6.1 National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA)
NITDA was established in 2007 to curb cybercrime. The Agency is responsible for
“creating frameworks for the planning, research, development, standardization, application, coordination, monitoring, evaluation and regulation of Information Technology practices,
65 activities and systems in Nigeria” (NITDA, 2007). Their duties also include; the formulation of guidelines to maintain IT applications in Nigeria for private and public sectors, the economy, rural-urban development, and the state. Additionally, NITDA provides guidelines for monitoring electronic communications transactions and data interchange. NITDA is responsible for IT certifications; IT advisory services to private and public sectors. It offers incentives through creating Information Communication Technology institutions (Ibid.).
2.6.2 Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)
The NCC was established in 2003 to regulate the Nigerian communications sector. Its functions include the protection of consumers against excessive communication tariff charges and poor quality of communication services. NCC is responsible for communication investments into the Nigerian market, issuance and renewal of licenses, and ensure licenses are billed correctly and operate according to guidelines. NCC ensures market power is not misused by promoting equal opportunities in the communication industry, monitoring of communication and telephone services to meet with international best practices. NCC assists in developing the national frequency plan with the National Frequency Management Council.
NCC is responsible for the importation of communication equipment, provide communication services in Nigeria and advise the communication Minister on regulating the communication industry (NCC, 2003a).
The NITDA, NCC, Office of the National Security Adviser, Paradigm Initiative – a Civil liberty organization and Cyber Security Expert Association of Nigeria collaborate for Internet
Censorship and Surveillance in Nigeria (Babajide and Odumesi, 2016). They do this by providing frameworks and policy documents for Internet governance in Nigeria. However,
Paradigm Initiative ensures they monitor the policy documents to protect citizen’s rights on civic spaces (Okunoye et al., 2018). This form of struggle for privacy protection in cyberspace by Paradigm Initiative is elaborated in Chapter three. Similarly, Okunoye et al. (2018), believes
66 that Internet shutdowns, website blockages and social media app shutdowns in Nigeria are as a result of increased state censorship of the Internet. During “incidents of Internet censorship”
(Ibid.), lack of technical evidence deprives human rights activists to succeed in their works of advocacy. However, despite an often problematic trail of evidence, there are a few notable cases of state censorship being applied in Nigeria. In October 2017, the NCC blocked 21 websites. This revelation was made known to the public by the efforts of Open Observatory of
Network Interference (OONI) and Paradigm Initiative through data collection of network measurement. Similarly, “OONI’s web connectivity test was designed to measure whether access is blocked through Domain Name System (DNS) tampering, Transmission control/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) blocking, or by a transparent Hypertext transfer” (Ibid.).
Example of blocked websites by Nigeria Internet Service providers are found in the below table:
Domains Globacom MTN AS29465 Airtel AS36873
AS37148
Naij.com Accessible Accessible Accessible
Igbofocus.co.uk TCP/IP blocking DNS blocking HTTP blocking
Ipobgovernment.org TCP/IP blocking DNS blocking HTTP blocking
Biafraland.com N/A DNS blocking HTTP blocking
Biafraradio.com N/A DNS blocking HTTP blocking
Biafranet.com TCP/IP blocking DNS blocking HTTP blocking
Thebiafrastars.co TCP/IP blocking DNS blocking HTTP blocking
Biafrainc.com Generic timeout DNS blocking HTTP blocking
error
Gobiafra.com TCP/IP blocking DNS blocking HTTP blocking
Biafra.info TCP/IP blocking DNS blocking HTTP blocking
67 Biafranigeriaworld.com TCP/IP blocking DNS blocking HTTP blocking
Ekwenche.org TCP/IP blocking DNS blocking HTTP blocking
Ustream.tv/channel/Biafra- TCP/IP blocking DNS blocking Accessible television
Biafrasay.com TCP/IP blocking DNS blocking N/A
Bafmembers.com TCP/IP blocking DNS blocking Accessible
Thebiafrapost.com DNS lockup error DNS blocking Generic timeout
error
Biafraforum.com TCP/IP blocking Connection error HTTP blocking
Biafra.net N/A DNS blocking HTTP blocking
Biafra.com TCP/IP blocking DNS blocking HTTP blocking
Biafra.dub N/A DNS blocking HTTP blocking
Restoringbiafranationhood.info Accessible Accessible N/A
Okunoye, et al. (2018)
The above websites were blocked as a result of contents supporting the Biafra movement in
Nigeria. However, Internet service providers also adopt the same model in censoring contents.
For instance, the HTTP layer is utilised by Airtel, DNS tampering by MTN, and TCP/IP by
Globacom in the blocking of websites. The rights to freedom of speech and expression on
Nigeria’s public sphere is censored as a result of the vested interests of commercial and political actors (Ibid).
2.7 Big Data Collection/Data Mining Procedures in Nigeria
Mobile network providers in Nigeria such as Airtel, 9mobile, MTN Nigeria, Visafone and Globacom struggle and compete for survival, yet, companies and citizens depend on them for their everyday transactions (Nwanga et al., 2015; Kadiri and Lawal, 2019). Statistics from the Nigeria Communications Commission in 2014 reveals that active GSM subscribers were
68 at 133 million totalling over 90% of the nation’s population of 160 million at the time (Ibid.).
Recent statistics of GSM subscribers suggest that in 2015 active subscribers were 149,787,120
million (Erunkulu et al., 2019). Active subscribers in 2016 were 149,818,906 (Kadiri and
Lawal, 2019). As of October 2019, active GSM subscribers were 180,118,345 (NCC, 2019),
which is about 90% of the nation’s population of about 200 million people. Such datasets in
the age of big data enable a mass analysis of users’ information (Nwanga et al., 2014) as it
helps in predicting crime, pinpointing threats to terror and preventing violence.
Nigeria employs big data analytics in “transforming the mode of operation of the
Nigerian security agencies, lead the country to solve data problems, augment the national existing information fabric and build competitive advantage for the country to fight terrorism
(Ibid.). Hopskin and Evelson (2011) suggest that digital data doubles every two years, and between 2011 and 2020, such amount will be increased by 50%. A top concern for intelligence professionals in performing surveillance is automated analysis technology. Thus, the need for algorithms in combating terrorism in Nigeria. The web is often utilised by terrorists to communicate, which is done anonymously. Such practices in the web are referred to as the
“dark web” (Nwangwa et al., 2014).
In Nigeria, the Ministry of Defense established the Office of the National Security
Adviser responsible for the sharing of information on threats to national security to other secure networks, to track, for instance, terrorists. The Nigerian Communications Commission regulates and provides data to the Big Data Centre. NIGCOMSAT is a Chinese communication export satellite (Zhicheng, 2006). It was launched in Nigeria on the 14th of May 2007, to
support ICT services in e-government, tele-education, commerce, tele-medics, telephony and so on (Boroffice, 2008). NIGCOMSAT hosts real-time GPS transmission of surveillance. The military agencies and paramilitary agencies are coordinated by the Office of the National
Security Adviser. The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) ensures
69 smooth collaboration between the communication agencies in Nigeria in protecting national security such as the NCC, Big Data Center, Network Operators and NIGCOMSAT (Nwangwa et al., 2014).
2.8 SOCIAL INJUSTICE IN THE DIGITAL SPHERE
Surveillance capitalists have skillfully exploited a lag in social evolution as the rapid development of their abilities to surveil for profit, outrun public understanding and the eventual development of law and regulation that it produces (Zuboff, 2015, p83).
With Snowden’s whistleblowing of NSA surveillance and big data generation by states to protect national security after the 9/11, citizens looked for means to perform anti- surveillance practices in the digital sphere. These developments led to resistance measures such as univellance and counterveillance (Dencik et al., 2016, p6). Examples of such anti- surveillance resistance measures are the Encrypted phone and software signal, TOR browser and GPG email encryption system. Other new forms of resistance web platforms have emerged, such as the Tactical Tech Collectives and Electronic Frontier Surveillance Self-Defense (Ibid.).
However, workshops and awareness campaigns on privacy continue to emerge to perform anti-surveillance practices by the creation of non-commercial social networking platforms. Some of such privacy enabled platforms are Riseup.net, Sindominio and Autistici
(Ibid.). To create a balance in the industrial surveillance complex, civil society organisations agitated for and contributed to the establishment of regulatory bodies for digital communication. The regulatory bodies include; “Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF),
Internet Corporation for assigned names and numbers (ICANN) and Non-Commercial User
Constituency (NCUC) (Dencik et al., 2016, p7). These agencies constantly develop proposals after the Snowden’s whistleblowing to ensure the privacy protection of the Digital sphere. The underlying question lies within whether or not these Internet regulatory bodies have been able to safeguard digital communication in optimum privacy contexts.
70 According to Harbisher (2015) and Monaghan and Walby (2012), in some democratic
nations, human right activists and civil society organisations are termed as terrorists/extremists
as a result of “radical activism” (Cooke, 2012). What does this imply? This thesis suggests it may lead to resistance, because in the Nigeria 1999 constitution, s37 provides privacy protection (Erinle, 2017) and the 2018 Digital Rights Act, promotes freedom of expression on digital platforms (Media Right Agenda, 2019). However, such freedoms are not granted in the
Nigerian society, as President Muhammadu Buhari rejected the signing of the 2018 Digital
Rights Act (Ibid.). Moreover, the underlying question lies within whether lack of clearly
defined data protection laws is contributing to the regulation of freedom of speech in Nigeria.
For instance, chapter five revealed the impact of state censorship on civil society, as a
good number of activists resisted anti-social media legislations. Following resistance of some
civil society organisations in Nigeria, such as Paradigm Initiative, the struggle for legislation
that would resist such restrictions as regards to online activism is sought for, as the protection
of national security is paramount to the state (Paradigm Initiative, 2016). The extent to which
the state establishes policies to maintain order is analysed in chapter five. Are activists now
regarded as criminals? In the western world, for instance, the United Kingdom and Canada,
social movement organisations have been termed as extremists (Monaghan and Walby, 2017;
Harbisher, 2018). This thesis suggests that activists can be classed as extremists if they break
or plan to break established laws.
However, this chapter begs to ask a succinct question; what prompts intelligence agencies/state to term, such people, as extremists? In Nigeria, Osaghae (2008), suggests that it is the behaviour of the younger generation of some social movements in Nigeria. For instance, the Boko Haram social movement group that started as a religious, social movement organisation and has now turned into a full-blown terror organisation. Similarly, the Militia
SMO’s in the Niger Delta of Nigeria that started as fighting for the well-being of the southern
71 region of the country and the safeguard of oil wells to performing violent activities. Such behaviours could be argued as some of the factors that prompt dictatorship in democratic nations (Ibid.).
2.9 SUMMARY
This chapter contributes to knowledge by emphasising on the need for The Intercept to reveal intelligence reports on Nigeria’s Wise Intelligence Technology. Although studies, such as Jacob (2012), Tope (2012), Ajayi (2013), Tafida (2014), Privacy International (2014),
Nwanga et al. (2014), Ogedebe and Abubakar et al. (2015), Babajide and Odumesi (2016),
Adesola et al. (2019) (Onashoga et al., 2019), suggested that the state is monitoring Nigeria’s public sphere to protect national security, this chapter fills the gap suggested by Babajide and
Odumesi (2016) where he called for studies to provide evidence of Electronic Intelligence
(ELINT) by revealing Nigeria’s Wise Intelligence Technology. Evidence from the literature suggests that new forms of surveillance/data collection techniques prove that existing data protection laws and privacy laws do not prevent state/non-state monitoring (Lin, 2018). I suggest that the solution to surveillance capitalism, in opposition to Klein and Zuboff (2019) notion of enactment of legislation by technology companies to curb surveillance capitalism, is activists utilising resistance web and social media platforms, such as Tactical Tech Collectives,
Electronic Frontier Surveillance Self-Defense, Riseup.net, Autistici and Sindominio (Dencik,
2016, p6) in mediation on digital spaces.
We reviewed The Intercept, which is an online news organisation specialised on writing global news reports on national security, justice, technology, politics and environment as a result of Edward Snowden’s leaks (Klein and Zuboff, 2019), to reveal the ways in which Wise
Intelligence technology carries out its digital surveillance practices in Nigeria, in comparison to studies such as Gallagher (2019), which reveals how Apple censors Apps in China,
Gallagher (2018), which reveals how China monitors citizens through Google’s search engine,
72 Biddle (2018), which reveals how Facebook infringes on users’ privacy, Lin (2018) Amazon
Alexa’s surveillance practices and Farooq (2019) revelation on how Turkey monitors citizens through drones. However, we were unable to find any report on Wise Intelligence
Technology’s surveillance practices. This chapter is an open call to the Intercept to reveal Wise
Intelligence Technology surveillance practices on Nigerian digital communication users.
In a global surveillance context, Ball et al. (2015, p171), suggested the need for analysis on surveillance to move from a macro and micro level to discussing on how “numerous entities collaborate in the production of surveillance”. To elaborate on this, the state continually
“colonises the private sector with public interest, while the private sector seeks to re-colonise the public interest realm with commercial opportunity” (Ibid.). This collaboration is evidenced in the body of this chapter, as I referred to private technology companies such as Google,
Amazon, and Facebook, collaborating with the state to monitor citizens on various grounds:
1) In a bid to maintain order which benefits the state.
2) Commercial opportunity by selling consumers data, which is beneficial to
technology companies.
When Jeff Bezos’s iPhone was monitored to reveal the relationship with his mistress, he referred to the act as a violation of privacy. However, his Alexa software infringes on large consumer data sets every single day. We do not think that the profit-oriented focus of Alexa would be limited by Jeff Bezos’s violation of personal privacy. Similarly, we referred to hacktivist organisations such as Anonymous and Lulzsec, which monitors organisations that perform surveillance on activists. We suggest that surveillance goes beyond Foucault’s 1977 singular gaze, as argued by Ball et al. (2015, p172), where they defined surveillance as
“multidirectional, opaque and fractured gaze carried by an information flow which is locally disruptive”. We add to this notion by suggesting that information flow is not only locally disruptive but is everyday disruptive. We came to this conclusion because of the gathering of
73 data sets and monitoring of everyday life for purposes of national security, wealth
accumulation, sousveillance and so on in collaboration with the state, local and international
powers. It is when citizens decide to avoid communicating on public platforms, that colonising,
and recolonising of data can shift to a different model. However, such practices could slow
down daily activities. In other words, communicating on digital platforms strengthens the
industrial surveillance complex. Dencik et al. (2016, p6) revealed privacy-enhanced social
networking platforms for non-commercial use. Is every user of commercialised social
networking platform aware of non-commercial platforms where they can communicate without
fear of their data being utilised for commercial purposes? Chapter six informs this study on
Nigeria human right activists awareness of such privacy-enhanced social networking
platforms. The next chapter reveals a call for freedom of speech.
74 CHAPTER THREE
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND INTERNET CENSORSHIP
3.0 INTRODUCTION
This chapter examines literature on social movements, texts on protests, and Internet
censorship. Social movements are “conscious, concerted, and sustained efforts by ordinary
people to change some aspect of their society by using extra-institutional means” (Goodwin and Jasper, 2014, p3). Whereas, protest refers to “the act of challenging, resisting, or making demands upon authorities, powerholders, and/or cultural beliefs and practices by some individual or group” (Goodwin and Jasper, 2014, p36). Revolutionary movements are “social movements that seek, at minimum to overthrow the government or state, and perhaps to change the economy and key institutions of the entire society” (Ibid.). It is often social movements that develop new ways of seeing society and new ways of directing it. They are a central part of what has been called civil society or the public sphere, in which groups and individuals debate their futures (Keane, 2018). According to Goodwin and Jasper (2014, p48), movements organise by either framing issues to attract the public or potential members or use a collective identity to attract the audience. Academic scholars of social movements often ask eight questions surrounding social movements. They include:
Why do social movements occur? Who joins and supports them? What determines how long a person stays in a social movement? Who stays and who drops out? How are movements organised? How do they decide what tactics to deploy? How are movements shaped by their interactions with other institutions and groups? For instance, how are they affected by the elites, the state and the media? Why and how do they decline or end? What changes do movements bring about? (Goodwin and Jasper, 2014, p52).
Theories of movement origins have focused either on the characteristics of participants or on conditions in the broader environment which the movement faces (Goodwin and Jasper,
2014, p53). Before the 1960s, sociology scholars perceived movements as “mistakes that were best avoided” (Ibid.). For them, the urgent political issue was how to prevent them, and to do
75 this, you needed to know why they emerged. Mass society theorists, for instance, argued that
social movements occurred when society had lost intermediary organisations that disaffected
individuals could join (Truong, 2015). Community groups, trade unions, churches and so on,
were seen as much stable and healthier than social movements.
Early theorists saw movements as a function of discontent in a society, and they saw discontent as something unusual. Today, scholars see social movements as a normal part of politics, and so these early theorists are no longer taken very seriously (Goodwin and Jasper, 2014, p55).
3.1 ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, CULTURAL AND STRUCTURAL APPROACHES
TO SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Research mobilisation theory originated from researchers in the 1960s and 70s who
realised that protest groups were composed of disaffected people, and to them what was needed
to balance a movement was “resources available to nourish it” (Goodwin and Jasper, 2014,
p56). This theory placed much emphasis on how leaders of social movements raise funds to
support and sustain their movements, either by appealing for support from elites, or today, via
the means of the Internet. This approach changed the question from kinds of individuals in a
movement to what structures are needed to sustain a movement (Ibid.). To sum it up, resource mobilisation theorists believe resources play a significant role in the emergence of movements.
Another group of scholars working in this field are the political process theorists.
Examples of political process theorists are; Castells, Touraine, Habermas and Melucci
(Buechler, 1995). Melucci talked about how social movements have evolved from the 60s to
various forms of collective identity in his 1980 text; The New Social Movements: A theoretical
approach. He moved on to write about how political conceptual frameworks became evident
in social movements in the 70s, and how new forms of collective identity emerged in his 1984
text: An end to social movements: Introductory paper to the sessions on new movement and
change in organisation forms. In 1988, Melucci wrote about Social movements and the
democratisation of everyday life. However, the evolution of communication technologies
76 aroused interests in cultural analysis of social movements. Melucci noted this point in his 1995
text: The process of Collective Identity.
They see social movements as primarily political or seeking changes in laws and policies. As such, changes in a state are the most important opportunity a movement needs
(Goodwin and Jasper, 2014, p57). They concentrated mainly on the emergence of movements and the economic and political shifts that occur within the efforts of protesters which opens up space for movements (Jenkins and Perrow, 1977; McAdam, 2010, p37; Tarrow, 1998). Social movements are a bit like art:
They are efforts to express values and sensibilities that have not yet been well articulated, that journalists have not yet written about, that lawmakers have not yet addressed. We all have moral sensibilities, including unspoken intuitions as well as articulated principles and rules that guide our action, or at least make us uneasy when they are violated. Social movements are good ways to understand these moral sensibilities (Goodwin and Jasper, 2014, p42).
From the late 1980s, cultural approaches came to existence, where organisers were seen as framing issues in a way that resonates with or makes sense to potential recruits and the broader public (Goodwin and Jasper, 2014, p47-48). Economic and political approaches to social movements saw protesters as straightforwardly rational and instrumental. However, the cultural approach looks at the “collective identity that organisers can either use or create to arouse interest in and loyalty to their cause” (Ibid.). For instance, in the Nigerian state, the ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta have continued to mobilise for the control of natural resources, political power and economic development (Bob, 2002). An example is the Ogoni protests of environmental damage caused by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in collaboration with multinational organisations. This protest urged Bob (2002) to call for an expansion of the analysis of political process theory. In his arguments,
“two factors neglected by process theory, leadership and political exchange are crucial to explaining interactions between local and transnational actors. In the Ogoni case, globally oriented leaders framed international opportunities for local constituents, shaping the movement´s goals and strategies. To realise these opportunities, the Ogoni reframed the movement to match the substantive, tactical, and organisational concerns
77 of these powerful actors, reducing the costs and increasing the benefits of support. The ultimate effects of third-party support were ambiguous, however, though in ways different than predicted by process theory. Shifting from their core issues and undertaking risky mobilisations to attract transnational support, the Ogoni also drew violent state repression which international actors were powerless to stop” (Ibid.).
Moreover, network theorists are another group of scholars of social movements. They
see networks as a fundamental part of movements. It is through networks that people are
mobilised into social movements (Goodwin and Jasper, 2014, p57). Similarly, network
theorists see social ties as an important tool in the emergence of a social movement. Network
theorists look at the structural conditions within the community or population of those who
might be recruited. Those with dense ties, or pre-existing formal organisations, will find it
easier to mobilise supporters and build a movement (Goodwin and Jasper, 2014, p58).
Structural approaches to social movements are the social networks that bind different
movements, these group of scholars moved from economic and political approaches to rather
looking at the social ties that bind people together for a movement to emerge. They see
movements as closely linked together. To them, participants and leaders share ties to form a
movement. It is such ties, for example, political conditions, equality rights, people that share
the same belief or belong to the same social networks, that aids mobilisation for movements.
As such academic scholars with such approach ask questions such as; what caused a social
movement to emerge, rather than asking questions surrounding the foundation of a movement
(Tarrow, 1998, p235).
New forms of cultural and social interaction and new representations of collectivities
and geographies take place as a result of network technologies (Sack, 2007, p16). In his
argument, “the Internet has become a flexible medium in which new technologies of
representation can emerge, acquire power, and at the limit, become metonymous with the world
they represent – parts taken from the whole. This relatively open vista has created many new opportunities for technologies of representation to show the frequently obscured side of their
78 function: that of enabling and ultimately transforming their objects. Technologies provide new
leverage on forms of collective action” (Ibid.). In the Nigerian digital media sphere, organisations such as SPACES FOR CHANGE (S4C, 2015) and Paradigm Initiative (Okunoye et al., 2018), carry out various forms of collective action to question Internet censorship and the legitimacy of the state. State censorship is further investigated in chapter five.
In studying social movements, the point is to observe or ask questions about
perceptions, desires and fantasies, without having a theory that predicts in advance what
protesters will think and feel. A network theorist, Manuel Castells adds emotions in his 2012
text Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet age. He defined social
movements by emphasising on the role of the Internet in the Egyptian uprising of 2011 and
recognised that revolutions are seizing public spaces (Goodwin and Jasper, 2014, p62). He
talked about collective identity, how the Egyptians had a feeling of making history and also
diverged into the effect of social movements on the Mubarak Government, as they took steps
to shut down the Internet, to avoid ongoing protests. However, the protesters still sought ways
of protesting online (Ibid.).
According to Goodwin et al. (2004, p95), cultural and structural approaches to social
movements are conflicting/disagreeing. Cultural approaches, such as the assumptions of the
political process and resource mobilisation theorists, focused on groups who have been
excluded from society. Examples of such groups are, those who do not possess the full rights
to vote, and also those who have formal rights to vote but feel they have to step outside normal
political channels to have a greater impact. On the other hand, structural approaches to social
movements such as network theorists make assumptions that people/group of people already
know what they want but seek an opportunity to go about it. When such an opportunity arises,
they make use of it. However, culturalists feel organisers often persuade people to feel the way
they want them to be (Goodwin and Jasper, 2014, p63-64).
79 Habermas’s theoretical framework of whether the Internet constitutes a public sphere
or not has been analysed by various theorists, such as Salter (2013). He is of the notion that
academic scholars who adopt such frameworks often “restrict themselves to the notion of the
public sphere developed in Structural transformation of the public sphere”. At the same time,
there are little contributions to other works of Habermas in their analysis. Secondly, academic
scholars in the past who adopt Habermas’s framework lack appropriate “hermeneutic
methodology”, such as that employed by Dahlgren’s (2005) The Internet, Public Spheres, and
political communication: Dispersion and deliberation. Moreover, Salter emphasises that more
analysis of Habermas’s theory of the public sphere is needed in the analysis of the Internet
(Salter, 2013).
According to Touraine (1989, p29 cited in Della Porta and Diani, 2009, p8), “social
movements are not a marginal rejection of the order, they are the central forces fighting one
against the other to control the production of society by itself and the action of classes for the
shaping of historicity”. Clause Offe (1985 cited in Della Porta and Diani, 2009, p9) argues,
“Movements develop a fundamental, meta-political critique of the social order and representative democracy, challenging institutional assumptions regarding conventional ways
of doing politics”. Alberto Melucci (1982; 1989; 1996 cited in Della Porta and Diani, 2009,
p9) described contemporary societies as;
Highly differentiated systems, which invest increasingly in the creation of individual autonomous centres of action, at the same time requiring closer integration and extending control over the motives for human action. New social movements try to oppose the intrusion of the state and the market into social life reclaiming individuals´ right to define their identities and to determine their private and affective lives against the omnipresent and comprehensive manipulation of the system. New actors do not so much ask for an increase in state intervention, to guarantee security and well-being, but especially resist the expansion of political-administrative intervention in daily life and defend personal autonomy (Ibid.).
Similarly, drawing from Manuel Castell’s 2011 model, the evolution of social media
aids protest activities to impact on a large heterogeneous audience (Castells, 2011; Epstein,
80 2015; De Luca et al., 2012). According to Castell’s notion of Network power in his 2011
Network Theory|A Network Theory of Power, in the network society, “power is exercised through networks”, and there are technological and social conditions where such powers lie within in four different forms. They are;
1) Network Power: the power of the actors and organisations included in the networks that constitute the core of the global network society over human collectives and individuals who are not included in these global networks. 2) Network Power: the power resulting from the standards required to coordinate social interaction in the networks. In this case, power is exercised not by exclusion from the networks but by the imposition of the rules of inclusion. 3) Networked Power: the power of social actors over other actors in the network. The forms and processes of networked power are specific to each network. 4) Network-making power: the power to program-specific networks according to the interests and values of the programmers, and the power to switch different networks following the strategic alliances between the dominant actors of various networks.
He further states that mass communication networks and self-communication networks are used in influencing the neural networks of the human mind in the network society via power and counter-power (Castells, 2011),
Castell’s network theory was criticised by Fuchs (2012, p777). He emphasised on the controversy social media plays in politics. Three authors theorised this controversy; Evgeny
Morozov, Clay Shirky and Malcolm Gladwell. According to Gladwell (2010, p45), activists often put their lives at risks when carrying out protest activities in the form of revolutions and movements. They do this by being victims of violence by policing or the state authorities.
Similarly, weak ties surround social media platforms (Ibid.). Gladwell (2010, p47), further states that Twitter and Facebook activism can only yield successful impacts in conditions where sacrifices are not needed. However, Shirky thinks that Facebook friends are real friends
(Scott, 2017, p46). Social media are not a “neutral enemy of the status quo, and they are more suited to making the existing social order more efficient” (Gladwell, 2010, p49). Morozov
(2009) argues that the evolution of social media reduces the risks of activists’ exposure to torture by the police or security agents at physical environments, as one can go on a Facebook
81 page and carry out a campaign, thereby promoting slacktivism. For example, the Bring Back
Our Girls Campaign in Nigeria (Chiluwa and Ifukor, 2015). Furthermore, the belief in the
refusal of the acknowledgement of the negative effects of social media such as the Twitter
revolution in the form of cyber utopianism brings about a “techno-deterministic ideology” (see
Morozov, 2011, p13). This revolution is as a result of the infiltration of these spaces by state
and commercial actors.
Shirky responded to Gladwell and Morozov criticisms of social network theory by
arguing that the use of social media platforms does not pre-empt outcomes. Democratic states are limiting freedoms on the public sphere, in the same capacity with authoritarian governments. They use it as coordinating tools (Shirky, 2011, p30). He further states that censoring motives, monitoring and controlling strategies of social media are ongoing.
However, these motives by state and private actors will be unsuccessful at the long run because social media platforms are “long term tools that can strengthen civil society and the public sphere” (Shirky, 2011, p32). Similarly, Shirky sees social media having positive and negative effects on democracy but is of the notion that at the long run, the positive effects of social media, will outweigh the negative effects, and by so doing, will thereby yield positive outcomes on democracy.
Shirky posits the techno-deterministic equation; “social media = more democracy = more freedom” (Ibid.). Shirky (2011, p38), argues that slacktivism is irrelevant because “the fact that barely committed actors cannot click their way to a better world does not mean that committed actors cannot use social media effectively”. In response to Shirky, Gladwell criticised Shirky, by stating that, readers have to be convinced by Shirky that if social media innovations were not existent, such uprisings would be impossible (Gladwell and Shirky, 2011, p153). Shirky replied Gladwell by stating that “social media allow insurgents to adopt new strategies that are crucial, allow the committed group to play by new rules, and that as with the
82 printing press, social media will result in a net improvement for democracy” (Gladwell and
Shirky, 2011, p154). Additionally, Shirky admits that the advent of the Internet promotes
democracy (Ibid.).
Castells responded to the whole social media controversy by Gladwell, Morozov and
Shirky by stating that, we live in a network society and that therefore “movements spread by contagion in a world networked by the wired Internet” (Castells, 2012, p14). He further suggests that it is only when large scale emotions of outrage and hope are communicated that revolutions could be associated to military, economic, ideological, cultural and political contradictions of power (Ibid.). Fuchs (2012, p779) supported Castells argument by stating that problems need to occur in a society in the form of objective conditions, for a revolution or protest movement to emerge. Resolutions can be achieved by a collective political action when there are personal insights into the objective conditions. For instance, citizens have to acknowledge the fact that the objective conditions, such as problems in a given society, are intolerable, and change needs to be made. However, he suggests that theoretical models and concepts are needed in the study of factors that influence the emergence of protests, revolutions and social movements in general. He further states that theoretical concepts are needed in defining social movements (Ibid.).
Nigeria citizens are often concerned about their well-being, such as freedom of speech and expression, marginalised voices, increase in unemployment rates, insecurity, and so on
(Hari, 2014). Such uprisings bring about protests in the form of strikes and mass demonstrations on the streets, and recently, on digital platforms such as social media. Before democratic regimes in Nigeria, military dictatorship system of governance was the order of the day, where the voice of the ordinary man was marginalised, and there was lack of institutions and systems to report such repression. However, democratic regimes in Nigeria, practice similar systems of autocratic leadership, just as it is in many other nations in the world (Ibid.).
83 The economy keeps declining, unemployment rates are high, and there are no proper systems
or institutions people can rely on. Most of the existing systems responsible for safeguarding
the ordinary Nigerian’s values are ineffective (Hari, 2014). Such developments often lead to revolutions in the form of protests and social movements in Nigeria.
According to Shirky (2011), repressive governments make use of social media to
suppress dissent. An example is the enactment of social media legislation to suppress dissent
such as the Cybercrime Act (2015), and the recent policy proposal in Nigeria that has passed
second reading by Senator Sabi Abdullahi. The Bill leads to the death sentence of citizens who
convey dissenting public discourse (Hate Speech Bill, 2017). In recent times, changes in
policies, systems and regulations have led to protests in the nation by civil society organisations
and labour unions (Hari 2014; Chiluwa and Ifukor 2015). However, Morozov (2011) is of the
notion that new media technologies in social protests strengthen surveillance capabilities of
repressive regimes. The assumptions that the Internet liberates the ordinary man are a delusion
(Ibid.). On the other hand, Chiluwa and Ifukor (2015) argue that protests via online
environments such as social media can yield high success rates if followed by offline protests
in physical environments. In Nigeria, 2012 recorded a protest movement that gained global
recognition in the sense that labour unions, top celebrities, ordinary people and civil society
organisations came together in mass protests. Physical and online environments were utilised
for the protest against the removal of the fuel subsidy, and the increment of fuel price from
N65 to N141 by the Jonathan administration (Hari, 2014).
This removal of subsidy was explained to be pertinent due to the country’s dependence
on the import of refined products like diesel, fuel and kerosene, and the inability of the
country’s refineries to meet up with local demands and global specification due to long term
neglect of many of the nation’s refineries. To meet the needs of the people, the Federal
government paid huge amounts of money for refined oil products. This development was made
84 known to the general public by the Goodluck Jonathan administration in the 2012-2015 Fiscal
framework, where deregulation of the oil sector was proposed in the form of removal of oil
subsidy to avoid large payments to the state. The aftermath of which would culminate in more
suffering and struggling for ordinary citizens. Majority of people in the country lived under $2
a day due to poverty and lack of employment opportunities, and cheap fuel is one of the benefits
the ordinary man in Nigeria seemed to have enjoyed from the government in the past (Hari,
2014).
The aftermath of the proposed removal of fuel subsidy led to a five-day massive protest
that took place from Monday 9th of January to Friday 13th of January 2012 by opposition groups, labour unions, celebrities, trade unions, civil society organisations and individual members of society. This movement took the form of a “Joint Action Nationwide Protest”
(Aghedo and Osumah, 2012) to force the government to put an end to the fuel subsidy removal programme. This opportunity prompted many Nigerians to unleash broader frustrations on issues ranging from state corruption, social inequality, oppression, mass killings and insurgencies by Boko Haram militia (Akor 2017). This protest was one of a kind that flooded social media. Celebrities took to their Facebook, and Twitter handles and hashtag activism,
#Occupy Nigeria, was born (Ibid.). Many supporters were mobilised via social media to the
#Occupy Nigeria protest that took place in major cities of the country: Lagos, Calabar, Kano,
Port Harcourt, and Ibadan.
However, this mobilisation resulted in many Nigerians pre-empting that the Federal
Government in a bid to avoid what happened in the Arab Spring revolution, where social media was used to foster regime change (Shirky, 2011). Policies/regulations might be put in place to monitor social media platforms; because the aim of the protest was not achieved. The Jonathan regime removed the fuel subsidy (Hari, 2014). Moreover, in the 2015 presidential election, social media activism helped the major opposition party APC (All Progressives Congress) to
85 win the elections. Nigerians were reminded of the #Occupy Nigeria protest on social media.
The protest was organised to campaign against the PDP (People’s Democratic Party), in the
2015 presidential elections. This development urged the former President, Dr Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan, to purchase a digital surveillance system that monitors Nigerian citizens on social
media to discover dissenting public discourse. Before the expiration of his tenure as President
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he enacted the Cybercrime Act (2015) that grants
intelligence agencies access to personal data (Emmanuel, 2014).
Another protest the major opposition party APC used against PDP, the ruling party, in
the 2015 presidential election, was the #Bring Back Our Girls Campaign. The protest was
popular on Facebook and Twitter and was led by a former Minister of Education in Nigeria
and Vice President of World Bank, Oby Ezekwisili (Smith, 2015). She led a group of protesters
to the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja, seeking from the Nigerian Military, the release of
276 kidnapped female school children by the Boko Haram groups that have terrorised Nigeria
with various violent attacks since 2011 (Chiluwa and Ifukor, 2015). The kidnapped Chibok
female schoolgirls from Borno State in Nigeria raised global concerns about increased
insecurity in Nigeria. Boko Haram was declared the second world’s worst terrorist group after
the Taliban, according to the “United States National Consortium for the study of Terrorism
and Responses to Terrorism” (Ibid.). Their links to Al-Qaeda as a foreign terrorist organisation was confirmed on the 13th of November 2013 by the United States Department of State (Ibid.).
Nigeria recorded the highest amount of Islamic-claimed terror attacks between 1997
and 2012 among all countries in Africa (Dowd, 2013). Boko Haram´s interest in Nigeria is to
negate western cultures, and it will engage in all sorts of violence to achieve its motive
(Adesoji, 2011). The kidnap of the Chibok girls was Boko Haram’s way of sending a message
to the world that education of female Nigerians is unacceptable. As at the time of writing, some
of the kidnapped Chibok girls are yet to be released. The Bring Back Our Girls hashtag took a
86 global turn, as Nigerians, home and abroad, took to Facebook and Twitter to support the movement’s motives. Mobilisation for this protest was easy due to the collective identity and emotions that this protest triggered. Thus, many Nigerians showed their displeasure at the Boko
Haram insurgency in the country following the protest, using the hashtag campaign.
There was a massive collective outcry for the release of the young girls kidnapped by the terrorist group. This form of activism was embraced in the public sphere. In the mainstream media, there was news of the release of the Chibok girls by the Nigerian Army. It was found out that about 200 girls were still in the custody of Boko Haram, or as it was stated: “married off to the Boko Haram Terrorists” (Chiluwa and Ifukor, 2015). This public awareness urged parents, family members of the kidnapped girls and many Nigerians to take to the streets and protest against similar acts. The #Bring Back Our Girls Campaign raised global awareness and popularity even among prominent nationals/top celebrities of various nations (Litoff, 2014).
The Bring Back Our Girls hashtag attracted the former British Prime Minister (David
Cameron) and first lady of the United States (Michelle Obama) as they were fully engaged in the protest. Civil liberty organisations across the globe, such as female right campaigners in
France, South Africa, England, US, Malaysia and Canada, joined in the activism by pleading for more efforts to be made for the release of the kidnapped Chibok girls. The campaigners/activists believed the massive involvement in the protest would yield positive results since there was a global condemnation of the Boko Haram insurgency (Ibid.). This positive outcome was reported in the Independent newspaper on May 13, 2014. They stated thus;
Boko Haram must be quaking in their boots…. These Islamic militants have razed entire villages to the ground, hacked men to death and killed children as they slept, but now the west has a hashtag campaign… Despite being simplistic and at times hypocritical, hashtag activism can work. The media watches Facebook and Twitter to see what issues people care about. Politicians read newspapers; they also want to get votes. If they see a course of action is popular, they´ll try and own that issue. France’s president offered to hold a summit on Boko Haram. Goodluck Jonathan is now willing to accept western
87 help, and hashtag activism has gone a long way into that decision… It´s not just politicians and the media watching social media (sic). Boko Haram might be militants, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t on Twitter (Independent, 2014 cited in Chiluwa and Ifukor, 2015).
The Bring Back Our Girls campaign was retweeted 800,000 times, and celebrities all over the world, including Chris Brown and Kerry Washington, joined in the tweets (Litoff,
2014). This massive global protest of a Nigerian terror attack against the rights to basic education urged Chiluwa and Ifukor (2015) to argue that language representation of activism often triggers emotions amongst participants of protests. While responses to social realities are reflected in emotional attitudes and reactions to social discourses, negative representations of discourses might occur in evaluating people, especially in discourses, including global terror.
These representations may lead to wrong interpretation of social institutions and government policies. An example is the #Bring Back Our Girls hashtag activism, which started as a protest on the high state of insecurity in Nigeria but quickly moved to the fight for children’s right to education in Nigeria. Recently, local and international civil society organisations and protest groups, such as Amnesty International Africa and Socialist Party of Nigeria, called for the signing of a petition for the release of a journalist, Jones Abiri. He was arrested for two years
(SAHARA REPORTERS NEWYORK, Aug. 21, 2018; Okakwu, Aug. 24, 2018). The hashtag activism on Twitter and Facebook gained much recognition in Nigeria’s public sphere such that online newspapers such as Premium Times and Sahara Reporters joined in the promotion of the activism which resulted in his release (Ibid.). It can be argued that hashtag activism promotes human rights in democratic regimes that still have traits of repressive regimes that seek to inhibit hashtag activism through Internet censorship.
3.2 THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AS A TOOL FOR POLITICAL PROTESTS IN
NIGERIA
88 Social media platforms increased political participation for state and non-state actors
(Okoro and Nwafor, 2013; Oni et al., 2017). The 2011 general elections exemplified such participation as social media, especially Facebook, was used by the former president of Nigeria,
Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, to portray his abilities. Before the advent of social media, popular political participation in electoral processes was denied. Airtime and slots were difficult to obtain in traditional media such as radio, television, and print. Critics have argued that state-
owned denied voters’ full participation in the electoral processes by debating on issues or
policies of their concern without allowing citizens active participation in political discourse
(Abubakar, 2012). However, the widespread of Facebook social media platform, an interactive
web-based new media that focuses on social networking, filled this invaluable gap, thus increasing political discourse and active participation of citizens in electoral processes. Okoro and Nwafor (2013) make the definition of social networking concise by stating that social media allow:
Users to express themselves, interact with friends, share personal information, as well as publish their views on the Internet. The ubiquitous access of these online devices no doubt has democratising effects as they offer citizens opportunities for more fully engagement in the political process. This means that voters have become more than just passive consumers of digital messages; they are now creators of the messages.
The advent of technology and social media returned power to the people, established
authorities are now subverted, and users of social media are now experts (Shirky, 2011).
However, this chapter argues that social media is a plus to democracy. Nigerians now engage
with social media to resolve burning issues bordering on insecurity, corruption, ethnic and
religious crisis that affect the very core of their existence. Without such political discourse, the
nation may have plunged further into a more profound social and political crisis. Regardless of
the opportunities, social media offer in the area of fostering change, increasing human rights
and promoting democratic values, established authorities still strive to put in place regulations
that will limit the freedom that social media offer. The need for collective struggles has
89 increased hashtag activism in Nigeria. Two good examples are the #Occupy Nigeria movement in 2012, and #Bring Back Our Girls Campaign in 2014 protests that gained global recognition.
Firstly, a look at Nigeria’s social movements at the advent of democracy is imperative at this point before investigating insights on what went down during the #BBOG, and #Occupy
Nigeria campaigns which gained global recognition.
The end of repressive regimes in Nigeria, and the beginning of a democratic system of governance in 1999, renewed hope to many Nigerians that human rights will be protected, especially freedom of speech and expression (Akor, 2017). The first democratic president
Olusegun Obasanjo, in his swearing-in speech, promised Nigerians that democracy would bring forth orderliness and accountability of representation. However, such promises are yet to be achieved. During the early democratic days under the leadership of President Olusegun
Obasanjo, there were “youth-led identity based separatist social movements” (Gore and Pratten
2003, p212). These separatist groups sprang up to fight repressive rules and policies, and this led to a lot of violence in Nigeria. Such movements are typified as the Egbesu boys in the
South-South, Oodua’s People Congress (OPC) in the South West, Movement for the
Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), in the South East, and the Arewa’s
People Congress in the North. They mobilised to protect the autonomy of power (Akor, 2017).
Similarly, ethnic and class antagonism may have triggered youth-led militancy groups such as
Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) and Niger Delta People’s Volunteer
Force (NDPSF) to emerge (Ibid.). These movements constantly challenged the legitimacy of the state by revealing their weaknesses. They mobilised against marginalisation, resource control, and often referred to representation as plunder (Gore and Pratten 2003, p211). The obstruction of peaceful protests in the form of coercion and policing of protest activities urged youths to adopt violent means for their voices to be heard (Obi, 2006).
90 The devastating consequence of youth-led violent groups led to the introduction of the
Presidential Amnesty programme worth billions of dollars that were initiated in the year 2009 to calm the aggrieved Niger Delta Militant groups through the means of monthly stipends to ex-militants, training of ex-militants locally and internationally on the pursuit of academic and
skills acquisitions (Ibid.). This development triggered other youth-led groups to adopt violent
means to foster dispute resolutions. However, most of such groups were sponsored by
politicians (Watts 2006, p650). Widespread usage of social media to foster mobilisation for
protest/movement activities in Nigeria came into the limelight with the revelation of the Arab
Spring, where social media was utilised in fostering regime change (Shirky, 2011). President
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan who began his role as the President of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria, after the death of his predecessor, President Musa Yarádua in 2009, was elected into power officially in the 2011 general elections under the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). The election was recorded as one of the most peaceful elections in the history of democracy in
Nigeria (Bamidele, 2012). President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan led the nation for six years and
was defeated by President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress Party (APC)
in the 2015 election polls. During his reign as president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he
presented himself as nonpartisan, a nationalist. He did not conform to tribalism and ethnicity
in the appointment of his cabinet. He spread power amongst citizens from diverse ethnic tribes
in Nigeria, especially women, to hold positions of power in his regime, some of which included
his ministerial and administrative appointments (Ngara and Ayabam, 2013).
It was during President Goodluck Ebele regime that the Freedom of Information Act
(2011) was enacted, which was applauded by a large number of citizens. It paved the way for
a free flow of information in the nation, as opposed to previous regimes before the reign of
President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (Johnson and Salau, 2019). Before his regime, his
predecessor President Musa Yaradua during the few months he led Nigeria, signed a
91 Presidential Amnesty deal for the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The region had not been peaceful before the introduction of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, because citizens demanded equal opportunities in governance and development in the Niger Delta region, as they claimed to have been marginalised for a long time. However, the major economic resource of Nigeria, which is petrol, comes from that region. As such, several struggles in the past occurred comprising of protests from militia groups. Examples of such movements are MEND, the Ken Sarowiwa group, the Ogoni struggle (Akor, 2017: Gore and Pratten, 2003). President
Musa Yaradua came to the aid of the Niger Delta Militias and decided to grant them their requests in a bid to foster peace and unity in the nation.
However, it was during the reign of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, that the
Presidential Amnesty bid came to existence after the death of President Musa Yaradua. This development brought forth opportunities to many citizens from the Niger Delta region of
Nigeria to gain academic qualifications, skills acquisition, through the Niger Delta
Development Commission and the Petroleum Development Fund (PTDF). The institutions were created by President Olusegun Obasanjo (Onopajo and Moshood, 2015 cited in
Nwankwo, 2019), in a bid to develop the Niger Delta region. Few months after the launching of the Presidential Amnesty Programme in Nigeria, kidnapping and civil unrest in the Niger
Delta reduced to a large extent. However, critics suggest that the Niger Delta Development
Commission (NDDC) has not been carrying out their duties, and several cases of corruption had been recorded (Isidiho and Sabran, 2015).
On the other hand, some religious leaders in the northern region of Nigeria began violent protests in 2002. The terror group Boko Haram was formed in 2002 (Ray 2016; Ajala,
2018), and at the time of writing, they have been carrying out violent activities ranging from rape, to kidnap, bombing, suicide attack and killings (Amusan and Ejoke, 2017; Oriola, 2017;
Bloom and Matfess, 2016). However, the Boko Haram has not been eradicated from Nigeria
92 at the time of writing. The Boko Haram group is trying to establish a caliphate, they seek for their amnesty (Nwankpa, 2017), just as it was granted to the people of the Niger Delta. Sequel to the 2015 general elections, the major opposition party to the People’s Democratic Party – the All Progressives Congress Party (APC) utilised the power of the civic space to remove the incumbent from the seat and defeated the incumbent who was a member of the People’s
Democratic Party in the 2015 polls. The APC mobilised various social movement groups to protest against the re-election of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. They stated that he was too weak to govern the nation and that during his reign, the Boko Haram group performed a lot of atrocities, which the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan regime could not handle (Ibid.).
The Goodluck Jonathan regime in 2012 witnessed a political protest where social media was utilised for mobilisation, organising and sensitising the citizens as a result of the increase in petroleum products prices (Ogunlesi, 2012). The protest was called Occupy Nigeria, and social media networks aided in the collective action and mobilisation of the citizens against the state´s policy surrounding petroleum subsidy (Ibid.). State-owned Mainstream media such as
Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) aired information about the increase in petroleum products prices from the perspective of the state.
However, social media provided an opportunity for the ordinary citizens that did not have access to the Mainstream media to be informed of the intended fuel subsidy.
According to Carvin (2012), social media provided the opportunity for ordinary citizens to mobilise and share concerns about the increase in the prices of petroleum products through the Occupy protest in Nigeria. The truth about the reasons behind the subsidy was conveyed to the public through social media. However, Olua (2012) believes that the 2012 protest – Occupy
Nigeria helped in combating state restriction of a free flow of information and proved to be among success stories of mass movements since the history of Nigeria. He states that some of the tweets and retweets that featured from the Occupy Nigeria are; “Save Nigeria, Fuel subsidy
93 is evil, among others” (Ibid.). Similarly, Olofinlua (2012) asserts that the Occupy Nigeria protest revealed the significant role the social media played in disseminating awareness amongst citizens of Nigeria.
The 2012 fuel crisis was used to campaign against President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan by his political competitors (Owen and Usman, 2015; Mustapha, 2017). This campaign prompted President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to enact the Cybercrime Act (2015). He paid huge sums to a foreign intelligence company for the purchase of a surveillance system – Wise
Intelligence technology (Privacy International, 2014) to track dissenting public discourse
before leaving office as a result of his paranoid (House, 2018). This innovation resulted to
surveillance on Nigeria’s public sphere and also led to the arrest of human rights and legal
activists, as presented in Chapter one (Bella Naija, 2016; Daily Post, 2016; Lailas Blog, 2016;
Ogundipe, 2016; Olowookere, 2016; Akasike, 2017; Ogundipe, 2017; Oyelude, 2017).
According to Onyeiwu (2019), President Muhammadu Buhari is more interested in
holding on to power than leading his nation in conformity to international standards.
Throughout the four years of his first tenure as president, he underwent one medical trip to the
other (AFP, 2019). The few months his vice president handled the affairs of the nation, there
was evidence of improvement in the nation’s economy, due to its proposed fiscal policies
(Sewell, 2017). President Muhammadu Buhari returned, and everything went back to the
previous state, the Naira continued to depreciate. He continued providing appointments to
people from his party. Thus, promoting prebendalism and patrimonialism. Most appointees do
not have professional expertise on how to manage Nigeria’s economy (Mbah and Nwagwu,
2019). Citizens began to flee the nation for sustainable income (Appiah-Nyamekye et al.,
2019). Investors pulled out of Nigeria, as the private sector suffered redundancies due to the
nation going into recession (Warner, 2019).
94 Social media became the only hope of the ordinary citizen to air out their views in the
struggle for a better democratic nation (Kperogi, 2016). Human rights Activists and Legal
Activists took to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to mobilise the ordinary citizens
on various issues concerning the everyday life of citizens (Ibid.). As illustrated in chapter six, the aftermath of protests on civic spaces against the state and for a better democratic nation was the call for the closing of civic spaces via enactment of legislation and drafting of bills to clamp down on freedom of speech, leading to a death sentence as a punishment for such mobilisations (Hate Speech Bill, 2015).
Nigeria conducted another presidential election on the 26th of February 2019. Many
Nigerians were hopeful of a change in power. They protested for a new leader who would
promote human rights and possess attributes of true statesmanship to man the affairs of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria. However, there were increased rates of electoral violence in the
elections (Shittu and Onyeukwu, 2019, p72). Moreover, the incumbent President Muhammadu
Buhari was re-elected as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, defeating his major
contender Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (BBC, 2019). It was rumoured
that the election was rigged in favour of the incumbent (Akinola, 2019). The future of Nigeria’s
economy and democratic values in the next four years up until 2023 is unknown.
3.3 INTERNET CENSORSHIP IN NIGERIA
According to Vareba et al. (2017), Internet censorship is “the control or suspension of
online contents, including all that can be viewed, accessed and published on the Internet, going
from simple e-mail to Internet blogs. Internet censorship, therefore, puts restriction of
information which can be publicised or viewed on online platforms. It may involve the
blocking or filtering of copyrighted information deemed to be sensitive, pornographic or
harmful to certain classes of individuals. Besides blocking and filtering, approaches to Internet
censorship may include content removal, and (partial or total) Internet shutdown”. Similarly,
95 in some Nation-states, certain pressures inform the need for Internet censorship, which
includes;
“the need to ensure national security, the protection of minors against abusive online contents, the need to protect human dignity through checking incidences of hate speeches, racial discriminatory messages on online platforms, the protection of privacy, the need to ensure information security through the prevention of malicious harking, the protection of reputation to combat issues such as libel, comparative and unlawful advertising, protection of the Intellectual property” (Ibid.).
In censoring Nigeria’s cyberspace, the state adopts “extra-judicial and quasi-
obnoxious” models, such as draconian and anti-democratic bills to avert online abuses by users.
Nigeria’s initial Internet censorship attempt was the “1995 draft proposal of the Electronic crimes, Telecommunications and Postal offences Decree, which conveyed sanctions of perpetrators of Cybercrime in the Nigerian territory. The 2011 Cybersecurity Bill, Computer
Security and Infrastructure Bill 2005, 2011 Criminal code Amendment for offences relating to computer misuse, 2008 Electronic Provision Bill and Cybercrime 2011 Bill are some of the early proposals to control the cyberspace by the Nigerian state. However, some of these bills were dropped. The state lacked “socio-legal” commitment of the bills, except the Cybercrime
Bill, which was enacted in 2015 as the Cybercrime Act (2015). The Cybercrime Act (2015) is currently Nigeria’s primary judicial tool in censoring the digital public sphere. Nigerian
Internet users have been arrested for crimes including cyber laundering, cyberstalking, spamming, manipulation of information, harking, and so on, as a result of the Cybercrime Act.
The state achieves this through “restrictions to connectivity (Internet shut down), blocking and
removal of online contents” (Ibid.).
In the fight against Boko Haram insurgency during the Goodluck Jonathan regime, the
state adopted Internet censorship in three North-eastern states by shutting down the Internet in
Yobe, Adamawa and Borno. This development was a means to avert Boko Haram’s use of
telecommunications in their operations. Similarly, during the 2015 presidential election
campaign, the NCC shut down the All Progressive Congress (the former opposition party) SMS
96 short-code that was being used to raise campaign funds. In the same vein, the Premium Times
online newspaper was denied access to Internet service in the 2015 presidential election
campaign period because they are private-owned media organisations publishing anti- governmental and anti-military discourses, which led to more investigation into Electronic
Intelligence (ELINT) as presented in chapter two (Okunoye et al., 2018).
3.4 SURVEILLANCE OF NIGERIAN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS
Citizen journalists, bloggers and human rights defenders resist the arrests and detention of media activists and journalists by state actors, which often leads to protests (Duncan, 2019;
Endong, 2019; Wilson and Jibrin, 2019). An example of such is the protest for the release of
Jones Abiri, who was arrested for “publishing about oil blocks in the Niger Delta” on the 21st
of July 2016 by the Bayelsa State command, Kofi Bartels who was arrested on the 4th of June
2019 by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) for “filming police brutality” (Amnesty
International, 2019). According to Amnesty International (2019), criminalisation of media
activists and journalists by the Nigerian Police, the Department of States Services and the
Nigerian Army is as a result of dissenting views surrounding “participating in a protest, filming
brutality by state agents, exposing corruption, refusal to disclose the source, election coverage, post critical of a Governor or Senator, offensive publication, social media posts and writing of report against a Governor”. Similarly, when arrested, protagonists are charged with “assault, cyberstalking, obstruction of duty, treason, blackmail, terrorism, sedition, cybercrime, unlawful assembly, defamation, petroleum production and sabotage, criminal conspiracy, stealing official documents, public incitement, inciting disturbance, defamation of character and injurious falsehood (Ibid.).
Arrested journalists since 2015 include Mary Ekere who was assaulted on the 16th of
September 2019 for taking photos of state officials’ brutality. Similarly, the Department of
States Services arrested Jamil Mabai for publishing a blog post about non-payment of salaries
97 by the Katsina State Government. SARS arrested Saifullahi Mikailu on the 20th of December
2017 for posting a picture on his blog with the Governor of Katsina state putting on female
clothing. Ahmed Salkida was arrested on the 14th of August 2016 by the DSS for refusing to
disclose the source of his investigative reporting on the Boko Haram insurgency. The Nigeria
Police arrested Samuel Ogundipe on the 14th of August 2018 for refusing to reveal the source
of his PREMIUM TIMES article covering arrests of media activists and journalists (Ibid.).
In recent times, the National Assembly of Nigeria proposed a Protection from Internet
Falsehoods & Manipulation bill, which has passed second reading. Many Nigerians resisted
the proposal, which garnered 43,014 signatures at the time (YouthsLeadNow, 2019). Citizens
suggest that the bill replicates Singapore’s Protection of Online Falsehood and Manipulation
bill (Tan, 2019), and Singapore ranks 151/180 in the World Press Freedom Index. As a result
of this, many journalists, including Omoyele Sowore of Sahara Reporters, were arrested
(Ibid.). Nigerians resisted the social media bill which criminalises the spread of falsehood with
79,208 signatures at the time, stating that the state in the real sense wants to clampdown on
freedom of speech by emphasising on curbing social media as a means to infringe on the
fundamental rights of Nigerian citizens (Okunrinboye, 2019).
The arrests, assaults and detentions of media activists and journalists were resisted by
Amnesty International (2019), by calling on the Nigerian state actors to desist from attacking
media activists and journalists, by ensuring freedom of expression on civic spaces. Similarly,
“Joy Hyvarinen – the Head Advocacy at Index on Censorship called on the Nigerian state
authorities to release Omoyele Sowore – the prominent journalist” (Index Censorship, 2019).
The trolling of Nigerian human rights defenders was resisted by Amnesty International (n.d.).
The criminalisation of Nigerian human rights defenders was resisted by Protection
International (2015).
3.5 SUMMARY
98 This chapter looked at social movement theory and then examined protests, demonstrations, and various responses from the state in Nigeria. Okunoye et al. (2018) revealed how Nigeria civil liberty organisations such as Paradigm Initiative and SPACES FOR
CHANGE collaborated in revealing websites that were blocked as a result of state censorship of dissenting public discourse. This form of revelation fills a gap in Babajide and Odumesi
(2016) assertion of the state monitoring Nigeria’s public sphere to protect national security, without evidence to substantiate such claims. Okunoye et al. (2018) evidence of state censorship in the empirical data contributes to knowledge.
Similarly, this chapter reveals how the legacies of the colonial justice system still exist in the Nigeria polity, as a result of the state’s efforts in maintaining order by the clamping down of freedom of speech of citizens of Nigeria, as evidenced in the literature (YouthsLeadNow,
2019; Okunrinboye, 2019). The resistance of digital surveillance of Nigerian human rights defenders by leading human rights organisations such as Amnesty International (2019;
Protection International, 2015) suggests that regulations of freedom of speech are a global problem. The chapter fulfilled the objective of exploring the socio-political changes that led to recent technological innovations in the surveillance and criminalisation of dissenting public discourse on social media.
99 CHAPTER FOUR
RESEARCH DESIGN
4.0 INTRODUCTION
In gathering data for this study, a qualitative method to fieldwork was employed
including the primary data of interviews of human right activists in Nigeria and corpus policy
documents of bills and Acts from 2008 – 2019 that represents state censorship in Nigeria.
Additionally, journals, books, articles, online articles and online newspapers are utilised as
secondary data. According to Frey and Fontana (1994), interviews are of different types, such
as face to face and group interviews. The interviews can be categorised into three types, the
structured, unstructured and semi-structured based on the purpose of the study. Frey and
Fontana argue that "the structured interview aims to get precise data within categories while
that of unstructured interview comprehends the society or human's complex behaviour of a
specific phenomenon (Ibid.).
Semi-structured and open-ended interviews were conducted to answer the central
research question. Semi-structured interviews are suitable for the comprehension of context for
communicating interview sessions as it gives room for discussion (Harell and Bradley, 2009).
As the research topic is exceptionally vast, qualitative methods are adequate for the results to
be concise. Although fieldwork methods such as semi-structured interviews and corpus policy
document of state censorship have been considered as the primary tool of investigation,
secondary data are likewise a rich source for an academic researcher. This thesis' goal is geared
towards obtaining a holistic and comprehensive understanding of regulations of freedom of speech and as such will be achieved through researching on corpus policy documents.
The primary data comprises of legislative proposals/Acts and interviews with activists
to analyse text and discursive events using Fairclough's dialectical-relational approach to
Critical Discourse Analysis. Similarly, this study has a lot to reveal on civil society intervention
100 in the everyday surveillance of Nigerian activists, journalists and ordinary citizens and forms of political resistance through online behaviour. The primary data of the study helps reveal the implications of social media surveillance on civil society and how citizens understand their online behaviour (as presented in chapters five and six). However, social movements have been used in the past to foster regime change in Nigeria, and the implication to the society was the enactment of social media legislation to arrest dissenting views surrounding anti-government and anti-military discourse by non-state actors. This discourse is further elaborated in chapter six - the analysis of corpus policy documents.
4.1 CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
In analysing the data, this study employed critical discourse analysis, in particular dialectical-relational approach to critical discourse analysis. Firstly, the definition of CDA is presented, the nuances are further discussed, before demonstrating the theoretical stances within Fairclough's dialectical-relational approach that was utilised in the analysis of this study.
Fairclough, Van Dijk, Kress, Van Leeuwen, Scollon and Wodak were academic scholars that introduced critical discourse analysis as an approach to data analysis after an academic symposium at the University of Amsterdam in January 1991 (Wodak and Meyer, 2009, p3).
However, Scollon and Kress later disassociated from the group and adopted other theoretical frameworks (Ibid.). CDA is a type of discourse analysis that "studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in social and political contexts" (Van Dijk 2004, p352). Similarly, CDA investigates how "ideological presuppositions are hidden underneath the surface structures of language choices in the text"
(Han, 2015). Scholars working under the umbrella of critical discourse analysis schools may work with "diverse theories and various foci", but they are bound by a concern for the investigation of the reproduction of ideology in the language (Fairclough, 1992). CDA looks into institutional, political, gender and media discourses (Wodak, 2001). Similarly, it
101 exemplifies how certain social groups may be ill-represented or misrepresented in various types of discourse.
Fairclough (1989, p22) believes that CDA is the analysis of written and spoken texts in relationship with institutions and society. Fairclough sees language as part of social practice, meaning that the analytical process of CDA looks at the entire process of how texts are produced, rather than merely analysing spoken and written texts, and conforms to 'institutional standards and norms' (Ibid.). According to Van Dijk (1993), critical discourse analysis is not primarily interested in contributing to a particular school, discipline or theory. Still, it is interested in proffering solutions to pressing social problems through discourse analysis. He further states that:
Unlike other discourse analysts, CDA researchers should take an explicit socio-political stance, spell out their points of view, perspectives, principles and aims, both within their discipline and within society at large. Although, not in each stage of theory formation and analysis, their work is admittedly and ultimately political. Their critical targets are the power elites that enact, sustain, legitimate, condone or ignore social inequality and injustice (Ibid.).
Wodak believes critical discourse analysis is the 'relationship between language and power' (Wodak, 2002, p6). He called on analysts to specify the particular school of critical discourse analysis referred to in their criticisms (Ibid.). According to Van Dijk (1995, p20), in theorising CDA, nature of social power and power abuse are to be examined, and in particular, the way dominance is expressed or enacted in text and talk. He asserts;
Patterns of discourse control and access are indeed closely associated with social power. Thus, whereas ordinary people only have access to, and control over such discourse genres as everyday conversations with family members, friends or colleagues, and more passive access to institutional - for instance, bureaucratic discourse and media discourse, the elites have access to and control over a vast array of both informal as well as public and institutional forms of text and talk (Ibid.).
Politicians have control over, for instance, governmental and parliamentary discourse
and preferential access to the mass media. Journalists have control over mass media discourse,
and preferential access to a host of other forms of official text and talk, such as press
102 conferences, press releases, reports, and so on. Scholars control academic discourse, such as lessons, textbooks, courses and scholarly publications. Corporate managers control decision making discourse (example boardroom meetings, corporate reports and many other forms of text and talk in business contexts). Similarly, judges do not only control who can say what in the courtroom, but also have special access to such discourse genres as verdicts (Ibid.).
Additionally, the elites have control over, or more or less preferential access to the most influential and essential genres of discourse in society.
Such access is conceived as a result of their powerful social or institutional or public discourse to sustain and reproduce their power in specific communicative situations. Such control, however, connotes power. For example, when judges control verbal interaction in the courtroom or have the privilege to pronounce a verdict, when police officers interrupt a suspect or when a professor asks questions during an oral exam. Critical discourse analysis focuses on abuse of power, critical studies specifically focus on the morally or legally illegitimate forms of control and access. For instance, when politicians, journalists, professors, managers or judges prevent others from legitimate forms of text or talk (censorship), or when they engage in text or talk that otherwise limits the freedom or rights of other participants. Similarly, when intelligence officers in Nigeria threaten ordinary citizens who incite dissenting public discourse.
In this research, critical theory is used to develop the transdisciplinary framework of political economy, a theory of the state and CDA. CDA "stems from a critical theory of language which sees the use of language as a form of social practice" (Janks, 1997). This thesis is primarily concerned with how people in positions of power develop and implement policies that affect people positively and negatively. Thus, Faircloughian CDA has been selected, as it emphasizes on how institutions influence the construction of discourse (Fairclough, 2003, p22).
In other words, the Nigeria state authorities enact laws and propose bills that regulate social
103 media and as such ordinary citizens are controlled on written and spoken text on social media, which illustrates Fairclough’s assertion that discourse can be productive as both concept and action (Ibid.). To investigate the language that is used by the Federal Government of Nigeria to construct the laws that prohibit hate speech on social media and the language adopted by civil society in reporting resistance of such discourse, the paradigm of qualitative research is apt.
As critical discourse analysis intends to comprehend the several dimensions of the use of language and social context as social practice, research using critical discourse analysis is hardly linear (Fairclough, 2001). In qualitative research, the investigator is placed as the main instrument of analysis, interpretation, and data collection. In discourse research, as discourses are constantly changing and socially constructed, investigators may or may not be resistant to the effects of social constructions and their adjacent discourses. Thus, it must be acknowledged that the findings of the research, along with the conclusions and interpretations within, may be restricted to a considerable extent (Creswell, 2012). Nonetheless, the CDA' rigorous and reflexive methods inquiry improve the ability of the researcher to produce valuable explanations and interpretations (Fairclough, 1996; Fairclough, 2001).
Discourse, however, is not limited to verbal action, but also involves meaning, interpretation and understanding. In other words, preferential access to public discourse or control over its properties, for instance, specific preferred topics, may also affect the minds of others. Similarly, powerful social actors not only control communicative action but indirectly the minds of recipients. We know that these processes of influence are exceedingly complex: the fate of effect research in mass communication, or the fuzziness of critical notions such as
"preferred meaning" or "manufacturing consent", all show that controlling the mind through text and talk is not a straightforward process. Research on attention, interpretation, comprehension, memory storage and other aspects of information processing defining
104 "reception" has shown that there are functions of properties of the text as well as properties of the context, and especially of the previous knowledge, attitudes or ideologies of recipients
(Ibid.).
However, discourse is used to develop normative patterns of social behaviour
(Fairclough, 1996; 2001). An example is when powerful speakers may control at least some parts of the minds of recipients. Critical discourse analysis studies how such influence and control of the minds are socially or morally illegitimate; an illustration is when powerful speakers control the minds of others in a way that is in the interest of the powerful. Since the action is based on the mental model of actors, models which in turn embody cultural knowledge and attitudes, influencing such models or the beliefs on which they are based may be an effective way to control the actions of people indirectly. For example, the public authority in
Nigeria is controlling cyberspace by drafting proposals that limit freedom of speech in virtual environments (Abdulrauf, 2016). Similarly, the government agencies responsible for protecting online discourse such as NCC (Nigerian Communication Commission), NITDA
(National Information Technology Development Agency), NIMC (National Identity
Management Commission), do not have legislation to protect Information communication technology. Rather, they have non-binding legal instruments regulating data processing activities, and non-binding instruments are not as effective as legislation (Ibid.).
The Nigerian courts are also not proactive in their functions as custodians of human rights relating to privacy in general. Much emphasis is placed on security, rather than the protection of human rights, the protection of online data dispersed on social media.
Policymakers in 2012 drafted the Data Protection Bill (2012) and Personal Information and
Data Protection Bill (2012). However, the Nigerian legislature is not committed to passing the bills into law. This is as a result of policymakers who drafted the bills not having in-depth
105 knowledge of the law on data privacy. Similarly, the draft bills' to adequately protect personal data are limited if any of them are eventually passed into law (Ibid.).
Moreover, the criticism on CDA recommends that its inquiry' methods remain mainly investigative and contrasted with "quantitative methods in genuine analytical procedures"
(Flick, 2009, p246). It is a fact that methods of CDA are still developing; though, this ought not to prevent the study with methods of CDA. CDA's ongoing approach is critical to the modification of these analytical processes. This current study may assist in the development of
CDA. Major critiques on CDA come from the analysis of conversation that is considered as the "social scientific approach" (Meyer, 2001). According to Arminen (1999), the analysis of conversation in discursive interactions, for instance, dialogues and talks, is treated as the adequate subject for analysis, as opposed to broader societal processes.
Schegloff (1998) criticises CDA by stating that, CDA does not consider the "discursive material" of its study. He argued that "conversation analysis" ought to be conducted if CDA seeks its "critical analysis" to be associated with information as opposed to the study being merely ideological. He further suggested that the researchers' apparent "ideology-laden stance" in implementing CDA might pose issues and give power to rivals of the method (Ibid.).
Besides, Widdowson (1995) criticises CDA by stating that it forms a partial interpretation. He observes CDA's bias from the ideological commitment of the researcher that unavoidably leads to a focused choice on texts which will advocate the preferred interpretations of the researcher
(Ibid.).
In response to the critique of Widdowson on CDA, it is argued by Fairclough (1996) that, in the approach of CDA, investigators are always clear about their stances. His opinion opposes other methods of social research, for instance, content analysis whereby, the fundamental expectations held by investigators are repeatedly highly implied, or just not decided previously (Titscher, 2000). Wodak supported Fairclough's response to Widdowson's
106 criticism by stating that, "the critical analysts should be transparent in their selections of data
in the process of research" (Wodak, 2001). According to Van Dijk (1995), for addressing the
criticism made on prioritisation of context on text, a relative study must begin with textual analysis, with this the answers can be interpreted against any of the significant socio-political
contexts. Such an effort can be made, such as using deliberating text consumption and
production, and how they are affecting the ideologies pattern that is found in the textual
analysis.
To address the representativeness of the selected texts or the selection of data which
arises by the randomised data selection, as suggested by Widdowson (1998), this study must
be aiming for dependability and credibility by being as transparent and truthful as possible in
terms of providing the sufficient details regarding the data resource. Following the criteria
mentioned above, the researcher adopts Fairclough's three-dimensional data collection process.
Fairclough's (1989, 1995) model for CDA comprises of "three interrelated processes of analysis
tied to three inter-related dimensions of discourse". They are as follows;
1) The object of analysis - including verbal, visual or verbal and visual texts, 2) The processes by means of which the object is produced and received - writing/ speaking/designing and reading/listening/viewing by human subjects 3) The socio-historical conditions which govern these processes. According to Fairclough, each of these dimensions require a different kind of analysis such as; 1) Text analysis (description), 2) Processing analysis (interpretation), 3) Social analysis (explanation).
Fairclough (2008, p10) presented three steps in conducting CDA. They are:
1) Analyse dialectic relations between semiosis and other social elements: between discourse and other elements of social practices; between texts and other elements of events. 2) Select texts, and focus on categories for their analysis, in the light of and appropriate to the constitution of the object of research. 3) Carry out analysis of texts, both interdiscursive analysis, and linguistic/semiotic analysis.
107 This approach is adopted in this research because it allows the researcher to; focus on
the signifiers that make up the text, the specific linguistic selections, their juxta-positioning,
their sequencing, their layout and so on. However, it also requires you to recognise the
historical determination of these selections and to understand that these choices are tied to the
conditions of possibility of that utterance. In other words, texts are instantiations of socially
regulated discourses and that the processes of production and reception are socially
constrained. Fairclough's approach to CDA is so useful because it provides multiple points of
analytic entry. It does not matter which kind of analysis one begins with, as long as in the end
they are all included and are shown to be mutually explanatory. It is in the interconnections
that the analyst finds the interesting patterns and disjunctions that need to be described,
interpreted and explained (Janks, 1997).
Furthermore, the data should be attained methodically and there must be sufficient data
for providing a representative sample (Ibid.). Wodak (2011) gives insight on transparency by
stating that any reader should be capable of tracing and understanding the thorough detailed
textual analysis. Much effort must be placed on the methodology described for evidently
explaining how this data has been downsized, collected, and selected. Toolan (1997) criticises
Fairclough's critical discourse analysis, stating that it lacks objectivity since the analysts decide
which texts to examine and which to ignore. Jones (2007) supports this criticism by adding that
Fairclough's attempts to provide a user-friendly guide to textual analysis in his 2003 text did not address the limitation.
Blommaert (2001) criticises how the analysts reach their conclusions and
Faircloughian Discourse analysis' lack of contextual information about given texts. Meyer
(2001) emphasises the inadequate accounting of data collection methods. This study addresses
these limitations by avoiding large, theoretical frameworks that do not fit with the data, and by
providing a comprehensive account based on the data collection approaches, methods, and
108 models that other researchers may adopt. Additionally, the researcher tends to overcome such criticism by employing a dialectical-relational approach to critical discourse analysis, as it provides opportunities for the analyst to right a social wrong (Fairclough, 2008).
4.2 FAIRCLOUGH'S DIALECTICAL-RELATIONAL APPROACH TO CDA
According to Fairclough (2008, p1), the language associated with a distinct field or practice, for instance - a political discourse, meaning-making as an element of social process, and "ways of construing aspects of the world associated with a particular social perspective", for instance - a neo-liberal discourse of globalisation is what constitutes discourse. Similarly, semiosis is the abstract term in analysing discourse (Ibid.). However, relations between elements are dialectical, being that they are discrete, but not separated, they internalise other elements such as cultural values, institutions, beliefs, power and social relations, without losing its status. Hence, semiosis is perceived as a component of the social process since the elements are dialectically related (Ibid.). Discourses should not be treated as mere semiotic, however, they should be related to other social elements. This discourse gives rise to multi-disciplinary frameworks when adopting dialectical-relational stance in analysing texts.
In analysing texts, trans-disciplinary framework such as the cultural political economy is employed in this study. This thesis adopts this approach since the categories comprise of political, cultural and economic discourse. Such framework stems from three disciplines, such as; a theory of the state, political economy analysis, and a form of Critical Discourse Analysis
(Jessop, 2004; Fairclough et al., 2006). This trans-disciplinary approach is adopted because it intertwines theories and disciplines together. As such, these dialogues pave way for subtle interpretation of the data, including theoretical and methodological development. Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999 cited in Fairclough 2008, p2) gave an example of such development, in the works of Basil Bernstein's sociology of pedagogy, where recontextualisation in the form of dialogue was introduced as a concept and category within Critical Discourse Analysis.
109 Additionally, the liberal-authoritarian democratic style of governance in Nigeria is as a
result of post-colonial discourse, often reflected in the abundant promotion of state-run
hegemony (Wimmer, 1997). As suggested above, critical theory is adopted in analysing CDA,
since critical social research addresses the social wrongs of the day, such as; lack of freedom,
inequality, injustice and many more. This is achieved by analysing resistance to such
discourses, causes, sources and suggested ways to overcome the discourse (Fairclough, 2008,
p2). In doing so, it attributes to positive and negative elements, because CDA analyses
dialectical relations between social elements and social relations to ascertain semiotic
components in the reproduction, establishment, change of unequal power relations such as
exclusion, marginalisation, domination and in ideological processes, and how it affects humans
(Ibid.).
These relations require such form of analysis, because the logic and dynamic of
semiosis are not transparent in any society, since their representations are misleading and
partial. In the same vein, critique focuses on how the logic and dynamic is tested, disrupted by
citizens, challenged and identify possible ways in addressing the wrongs in a society, which in
turn improves well-being (Ibid.). This approach to cultural political economy is presented in chapter five and six. According to Fairclough (2001), "every practice is an articulation of diverse social elements within a relatively stable configuration, always including discourse".
The elements are "dialectically related" (Harvey, 1996 cited in Fairclough, 2001), and they include; forms of consciousness, discourse, values, time and place, instruments, objects, activities, subjects and their relations (Fairclough, 2001).
This thesis adopts the four stages of analysis by Fairclough (2008, p7);
1) Focus upon a social wrong, in its semiotic aspects,
2) Identify obstacles to addressing the social wrong,
3) Consider whether the social order needs the social wrong
110 4) Identify possible ways past the obstacles
He further suggests that elements of social systems, orders or forms that affect the well-
being of humans are termed as social wrongs in a given society. Some of which include racism,
forms of inequality, poverty and lack of freedom do constitute a social wrong, and as such,
CDA is employed in the arguments and debates which are always trending (Ibid.). To simplify
the four stages adopted in the analysis of my data in chapter five and six, I selected a research
topic which connotes a social wrong – Digital Surveillance and Social Justice in Nigeria: a
study of New Media regulations, which is approached in a transdisciplinary way.
Moreover, this thesis constructed objects of research by theorising them in a
transdisciplinary way; a theory of the state, political economy analysis and a form of CDA
(Fairclough, 2008, p7). Similarly, obstacles were identified to address the social wrong, by
analysing dialectical relations between semiosis and other social elements: between orders of
discourse and other elements of social practices; between texts and other elements of events.
Select texts, and focus on categories for their analysis, in the light of and appropriate to the
constitution of the object of research, carry out analysis of texts, both interdiscursive analysis,
and linguistic/semiotic analysis (Fairclough, 2008, p10). Similarly, I identified possible ways
in overcoming the obstacle by shifting the analysis from a negative to a positive critique (Ibid.)
in the conclusion. The analysis focuses on Fairclough's (2013) text on Argument, deliberation,
dialectic and the nature of the political: A CDA perspective which suggests the need for
pinpointing wrongs in societies and suggesting solutions to right the wrong.
4.3 SUMMARY
This chapter presented the nuances of CDA scholars; Fairclough, Van Dijk, Kress, Van
Leeuwen, Scollon and Wodak which was utilised in analysing the next two chapters using a
dialectical-relational approach to CDA. The framework is a transdisciplinary cultural political economy discourse which stems from three disciplines; critical discourse analysis, political
111 economy analysis and a theory of the state (Fairclough, 2008, p7). A post-colonial discourse
(Spivak et al., 2006; Bhabha, 1994; Said, 1978; 1980) is a colonial recontextualised state-run
hegemony requisite to the liberal authoritarian style of governance in Nigeria (Ibhawoh, 2002;
Yusuf, 2018). A contribution to method and theory in the next two chapters is the analysis of
resistance to power using a dialectical-relational approach to CDA. Similarly, it offers the
researcher the opportunity to right a social wrong by adding own voice in the analysis of the
thesis, which develops Fairclough's (2013) text on the need for righting social wrongs.
112 CHAPTER FIVE
ANALYSIS OF CORPUS POLICY DOCUMENTS
5.0 INTRODUCTION
As illustrated in Chapter four, this chapter develops Fairclough’s dialectical-relational approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 2008; 2013) to explain the results of the material gathered on freedom of speech in Nigeria. The texts and discursive practices this chapter explores in the analysis are policy documents representing state censorship to reveal restrictions of freedom of speech. They are; Frivolous Petitions Prohibitions Bill (2015),
Cybercrime Act (2015), NGO Regulatory Bill (2017), Hate Speech Bill (2017) and Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill (2019). In Fairclough’s (2001) model of CDA,
“every practice is an articulation of diverse social elements within a relatively stable configuration, always including discourse” (Harvey, 1996 cited in Fairclough, 2001). The elements are dialectically related, and they include; forms of consciousness, discourse, values, time and place, instruments, objects, activities, subjects and their relations (Ibid.). This chapter adopts the steps to CDA described earlier on in Chapter four in its analysis, focusing on righting social wrongs in the Nigeria polity (Fairclough, 2013).
The social events analysed in this chapter are two newspaper articles which reveal the support of the Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill (2019), by the first lady of Nigeria Aisha Buhari. They are; SaharaReporters article (SaharaReporters, Nov. 30,
2019) and The Irish Times article (Hayden, Dec 2, 2019).
SaharaReporters.com is an outstanding, groundbreaking news website that encourages citizen journalists to report ongoing corruption and government malfeasance in Africa. Using photos, text, and video dynamically, the site informs and prompts concerned African citizens and activists globally to act, denouncing officially-sanctioned corruption, the material impoverishment of its citizenry, defilement of the environment, and the callous disregard of the democratic principles, enshrined in the constitution (SaharaReporters, Nov 30, 2019).
Similarly,
113 The Irish Times delivers top-quality news, opinion and analysis since it was first published in 1859. As media technologies evolve, so do our methods of storytelling and delivery. The Irish Times continues the transition from print to multiplatform publication while upholding the journalistic principles that earned it the reputation as Ireland’s paper of reference (O’Neill, Dec 17, 2019).
We chose SaharaReporters and The Irish Times because SaharaReporters newspaper organisation is an independent established online platform that mediates the people of Africa through its struggle for human rights. The organisation is based in New York and is independent. However, we chose to compare SaharaReporters with Irish Times Dublin newspaper outlet because, Irish Times has a long-standing presence in global news reports, especially of critical events.
In analysing the policy documents as mentioned above, I realised that over the years, the state continues to carry out censorship to establish and maintain order. However, we suggest that it is the constant publications of dissenting public discourse on social media platforms by
NGO’s and the ordinary citizens on social media that drives the state in continuous attempts of censorship. Regulation of the public sphere is not a new concept, as it is argued that many stakeholders in Nigeria support the regulations to promote capitalism (Unerman and Bennett,
2004). The Nigerian capitalist state continues to strive in establishing and maintaining order.
Proposals are presented continuously to the lower and upper chambers of the National
Assembly to restrict freedom of speech in everyday life (Frivolous Petitions Prohibition Bill,
2015; Hate Speech Bill, 2017; NGO Regulatory Bill, 2017, Protection from Internet
Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill 2019). Words such as monitoring, imprisonment, fines, intercept, threatening, abusive, continues to reoccur when I carried out a frequency analysis of the policy documents under study which suggests state censorship.
Similarly, I realised there were common themes in the policy documents, and they include sedition, political control and ideology. The policy documents tend to portray the intent of the Nigerian state in establishing, maintaining order and restrictions of freedom of speech.
114 They do this through the means of introducing fines, death sentence and arrest warrants of
citizens who do not adhere to their code of conducts, or who continuously publishes dissenting
public discourse that is anti-military and anti-governmental (Hate Speech Bill, 2017; NGO
Regulatory Bill, 2017).
5.1 SEDITION
According to Yusuf (2018, p27), “the legacies of colonialism including the impunity of the period, have the potential to shape and condition transitional justice processes” in the
Nigeria polity. The existence of colonial legacies in Nigeria’s justice system is evidenced in the below proposal, as it is similar to the “Seditious Offences Ordinance 1909” (Ibhawoh 2002, p74), which resulted to protests in Lagos. The Frivolous Prohibition Petition Bill (2015) reads:
“where any person through text message, tweets, WhatsApp or through any social media, post any abusive statement knowing same to be false with intent to set the public against any person and/or group of persons, an institution or Government or such other bodies established by law shall be guilty of an offence, and upon conviction shall be liable to an imprisonment of 2 years or a fine of N2,000,000.00 or both such fine and imprisonment”.
The bill suggests to the readers that the state intends to restrict freedom of speech.
However, the languages used in the above quote suggests sedition, which reveals to the readers that the outcome will likely be resistance from civil society. The languages used in the Hate speech Bill (2017) connotes sedition in the sense that it suggests to the readers the expectations of resistance. The bill reads; “a person who uses, publishes, presents, produces, plays, provides, distributes and/or directs the performance of any material, written and/or visual, which is threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour commits an offence and is liable to death by hanging” (Ibid.). The intent to regulate dissenting public discourse may be necessary for protecting national security. However, such regulations could result to data breaches, as it may be difficult for technological innovations such as Wise Intelligence Technology (Privacy
International, 2014) to sort digital data produced for violence or democratic legitimacy.
5.1.1 POLITICAL CONTROL
115 Wodak (2002, p6) is of the notion that Critical Discourse Analysis is the relationship
between language and power. The term “liable to death” employed in the Frivolous Petitions
and Prohibition Bill (2015) connotes enforcement of power by the Nigerian state authorities,
should in case citizens go against set rules as presented in the proposal. Similarly, the
Cybercrime Act (2015) suggests political control in the sense that the state obliges the
Telecommunication providers to retain data for national security as provided in the quote;
“where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the content of any electronic communication is reasonably required for the purposes of a criminal investigation or proceedings, a judge may on the basis of information or oath order a service provider, through the application of technical means to intercept, collect, record, permit or assist competent authorities with the collection or recording of content data and/or traffic data associated with specified communications transmitted by means of a computer system; or authorises a law enforcement officer to collect or record such data through the application of technical means” (Cybercrime Act, 2015).
Similarly, the NGO Regulatory Bill (2017) criminalises non-governmental organisations and civil society groups advocating for human rights, fundamental freedoms and good governance. The bill also threatens to shut down civil society groups with human rights advocacy as a primary goal. This proposal by the state suggests political control and restriction of freedom of speech in society. In the same vein, the Protection from Internet Falsehoods and
Manipulation Bill (2019) suggests political control and enforcement of power due to the presence of regulatory proposal on Nigeria’s public sphere in a bid to strengthen national security. The bill reads;
“A person must not do any act in or outside Nigeria to transmit in Nigeria a statement knowing or having reason to believe that it is a false statement of fact and the transmission of the statement in Nigeria is likely to be prejudicial to the security of Nigeria or any part of Nigeria including other online contents and activities and malicious falsehoods capable of causing harm to individual users, particularly minors, or threatens our way of life in Nigeria”, either by undermining national security or by reducing trust and undermining our shared rights, responsibilities and opportunities to foster the country´s unity and integration. Prohibitors of the proposal are to be imprisoned for less than three years and fined not more than 10 million Nigerian naira (Ibid).
5.1.2 IDEOLOGY
116 According to Fairclough (1992), Critical Discourse analysts are concerned about the investigation of the reproduction of ideology in language. Firstly, the semantics “frivolous” employed in the headline of the Frivolous Petitions Prohibitions Bill (2015) is misleading. As defined in the Oxford dictionary, a frivolous person is a carefree person and superficial person
(Oxford, 2019). The positive connotations of this bill are outlined in sections 1 to 3 where a penalty of six-month imprisonment without the option of fine are spelt out for persons who unlawfully publishes a petition for an investigation. Similarly, in the headline of the NGO
Regulatory Bill (2017), words such as supervision, co-ordination and monitoring suggest that the activities of NGO’s in Nigeria will be under constant surveillance by the state. However, the intent of shutting down NGO’s with the pursuit of human right goals suggests restrictions of freedom of speech in Nigeria. Consequently, if media activists and journalists report dissenting public discourse, they may be going against the state’s code of conduct surrounding the regulation of NGO’s.
The ideological preconceptions in the Cybercrime Act (2015) are as a result of the aftermath of the 2015 election where social media was utilised in campaigning against
President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, which in turn resulted to his defeat in the 2015 polls
(Alhassan, 2018; Seteolu, 2017). Some sections of the bill are resisted by civil society and call for amendments for the Act to be favourable to ordinary citizens (Ibid.). In s21 of the
Cybercrimes Act (2015), all service providers must report all attacks and intrusions liable to hinder the functioning of another system or network to the National Computer Emergency
Response Team (CERT). Failure to report such within seven days will be liable of offence and face a compulsory fine.
However, s40 of the Cybercrime Act (2015) has negative representations in the form of violation of rights in the sense that, it fines and imprisons service providers and executive officers of service providers for not obliging to directives from the state. Every service provider
117 in Nigeria has to comply with all the provisions of this Act and disclose information requested
by any law enforcement agency or otherwise render assistance in any inquiry or proceeding
under this Act and service providers shall be liable to a fine of ten million Nigerian naira.
Similarly, the directors, officers, or managers of the service provider shall be liable to three
years imprisonment or a fine of seven million Nigerian naira (Ibid.). Positive representation of
the Act is the need to strengthen the struggle for cybersecurity, which is evidenced and
applauded through the enactment of the Cybercrime Act (2015) which puts into practice the
directions of the Economic Community of West African States - ECOWAS in 2011 to fight
against cybercrime (Okoh and Chukwuekwe, 2016, p2; Evans, 2019).
5.2 A Critical Discourse Analysis of SaharaReporters (SaharaReporters, Nov 30, 2019)
and The Irish Times (Hayden, Dec 2, 2019)
In analysing the texts mentioned above, I utilised Fairclough’s (2003) notion of CDA, which examines vocabulary and grammar in cognizance with the issues surrounding the language used in news stories. In doing so, I challenged the writer’s position and suggested ways in which news discourse would have been presented. Similarly, I examined external and
internal relations within the text, which is categorised into “three types of meaning – action,
representation and identification”, as suggested by Fairclough (2003, p27). According to
Thomson (2007, p4), action illustrates the format of the text as regards declaration, persuasion,
interrogation and implication. The description of actions, people and places are representations.
An example is the number of news stories that followed the second reading of Nigeria’s
Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill (2015). The wife of the president
of Nigeria – Aisha Buhari was represented with different language choices in various news stories, such as; first lady, Buhari’s wife, and so on. Such representations of the text’s intent are referred to as identification. However, Teo (2000, p11) suggests that CDA helps in
118 recovering and unlocking social meanings and ideologies of discourse, which distinguishes
CDA from critical linguistics and other forms of analysis.
5.3 The Texts
The first text is from the African lower and middle-class market newspaper
SaharaReporters.com. This newspaper is targeted at ordinary citizens of the African heritage.
The second article is from the Irish market Irishtimes.com. This newspaper targets global audiences as it publishes newspaper articles of social events that affect the everyday life of citizens positively and negatively. The Irish Times lists an author of the text, which was
represented as Hayden Sally (Hayden, Dec 2, 2019). Whereas, SaharaReporters did not contain an author of the text (SaharaReporters, Nov 30, 2019). This could be as a result of how news is published in different newspaper establishments, because, Bell (1991, p33) suggests that articles are edited and written by 12 or more people. Every newspaper organisation has its style of writing to attract preferred audiences (Bell, 1991, p47).
5.4 Internal Relations
In as much as both articles refer to the same event of Protection from Internet
Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill (2019) in Nigeria, the ways in which they are handled are disparate. Fairclough’s internal relations, as initially described, is employed in examining the differentiation in the newspaper articles in the next sessions.
5.4.1 Action
As argued by Fairclough (2003, p27), action describes the intent of the text, relating the event to the text. The differences in which both texts report event series are the representations.
The clauses are structured as declarative in both texts.
5.4.2 Representation
119 It is in the representation of the text that the writers convey the message to the world
(Ibid.). SaharaReporters and The Irish Times chose different approaches to represent how the
authors want to deliver the news.
5.4.3 Vocabulary
Differentiations in newspaper texts are firstly observed by the vocabulary used in the
headlines to lead the readers into the news story. According to Caldas-Coulthard (1996, p257),
“in newspapers, the headline and the lead (the first paragraph of the text), in most cases, fulfil
the dual function of the abstract and the orientation. For all periodical articles, the lead is the
most important paragraph of the story”. SaharaReporters article begins with; Buhari’s wife
backs Hate Speech Bill, Says Nigerian Government Needs to ‘Control’ Like China
(SaharaReporters, Nov. 30, 2019). Furthermore, the sub-headline of SaharaReporters reads;
According to her, since China, with about 1.3 billion people can do so, there was nothing wrong
for Nigeria to adopt first such measure (Ibid.). Such representations of the first lady of Nigeria
as Buhari’s wife in the headline informs the reader to picture the event as a political control
discourse, which contains discourses of bias from the writer of the article. The sub-headline goes further to inform the reader to picture the event as a repressive discourse since it mentions the vocabulary of the state supporting China’s repressive state model. Contrastingly, the Irish
Times headline begins with Nigerian social media Bill under fire as the first lady suggests emulating China (Hayden, Dec. 2, 2019). The sub-headline reads; New rules would criminalise insulting the government online with three years in jail (Ibid.).
Firstly, the Irish Times headline refers to the wife of the president of Nigeria as the first lady, which is her official status in Nigeria and moves on to reveal the in-house formal style of headline writing, in the sense that the vocabulary used in the writing of the headline does not suggest bias. Secondly, the verb “suggests” in the headline informs the reader to picture the event of the Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill (2019), as a call for
120 debate. However, SaharaReporters verb usage of “control” informs the reader to picture the event as a discourse that is not debatable. Similarly, SaharaReporters sub-headline portrays the event to the reader that the state authorities do not perceive a liberal authoritarian style of governance as something wrong, as the quest to exercise powers on dissenting platforms is applauded. However, the subheadline of the Irish Times appeals to the reader the intent of the author to relay a message to the rest of the world about a new social media bill that criminalises dissenting public discourse with a punishment of three years jail term.
SaharaReporters article representation of events is different from the Irish Times representation of events. The former did not make mention of the punishment that goes with the act of insulting the state authorities on digital platforms, but rather represents its bias towards the state, as the vocabulary “control”, “nothing wrong” suggests to the reader that there is a problem that needs to be tackled. The different vocabulary used in the SaharaReporters and the Irish Times are presented in the table below:
SaharaReporters The Irish Times
Vocabulary Times used Vocabulary Times used
Hate speech bill 1 Social media bill 4
Stiff 1 Criminalise 1
Control 3 Control 4
Social media 3 Social media 6
Tweet 1 Tweeted 1
Adopt such measure 2 Emulate 1
Aisha Buhari 4 Citizens 2
Activists 1
Draconian 1
Defamation 1
121 Protests 1
Freedom of 2
expression
Constitution 1
Regulate 1
Prejudicial to 1
national security
Diminish public 1
confidence
Power 2
Arrested 1
Under fire 1
Curating 1
Aisha Buhari 4
Vocabulary explaining the Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill (2019)
Sahara Reporters, in contrast to The Irish Times, stressed on how the wife of the
President of Nigeria supports the enactment of the Protection from Internet Falsehoods and
Manipulation bill (2019). Aisha Buhari was explicitly mentioned four consecutive times, which
is further represented as “stiffening social media regulations” and supporting China’s social
media control mechanism. The choice of languages used in the article suggests that the state is
willing to control the nation in comparison to China, without explaining to its readers what the
Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation bill (2019) entails in details, and also without revealing resistance to the bill. However, the Irish Times article employs various languages to disseminate the meaning of the Protection from Internet Falsehoods and
Manipulation Bill (2019), its implication and resistance by activists. It begins by explaining to
122 its readers on an activist’s opposition to the bill and ends with resistance by another activist.
“Activists are rallying in Nigeria after the country’s first lady proposed using China as a model
for how to control citizens social media use” (Hayden, 2019, p1).
The Irish Times used the language “draconian” to explain the implication of the
Protection from Internet and Falsehoods Manipulation Bill (2019). The news organisation revealed Deji Adeyanju who had been previously arrested by the state for defamation, protesting against the enactment of the bill. Similarly, The Irish Times revealed how the state
seeks to “take away the right to freedom of expression of the citizens which are constitutionally
guaranteed in section 39 of the constitution” (Hayden, 2019, p1). The article also concluded
with resistance from another activist Amaize who left the shores of Nigeria to the US six
months before the time of writing. He relocated as a result of threats from the state to re-arrest
him because he continually curates about dissenting public discourses on Kakaaki Social – a
Nigerian television programme (Hayden, 2019, p2).
Sahara Reporters Irish Times
Vocabulary times Used Vocabulary times used
Stiff 1 Control 4
Control 3 Shot to death 1
Diminish public 1
confidence
Draconian 1
Tyranny 1
Arrested 1
Under fire 1
Vocabulary with negative connotations
123 Sahara Reporter’s article does not emphasise on the problematic stance of the bill but
rather focused on Aisha Buhari supporting the enactment of the bill. However, the Irish Times
article leads its readers to be aware that there is a problem concerning the Protection from
Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill (2019), as a result of the stronger choice of languages employed. Strong words such as “tyranny”, “under fire”, “draconian”, “shot to death”, “diminish public confidence”, suggests to readers that there is a problem.
5.4.4 Quoted Sources
SaharaReporters and Irish Times choice of sources for direct quotes are contrasting.
According to Caldas-Coulthard (1994, p298), “the reporter only reports those part of the
exchange that is significant for him/her according to his/her view of the world”. Sahara
Reporters cites two sources for direct quotes. The first source is a statement by the first lady of
Nigeria condemning tweets of citizens and does not emphasise on what the bill in question
represents. The second source follows suit by revealing Aisha Buhari’s support of China’s
social media control mechanism, without revealing the implication of the social media bill to
citizens.
The Irish Times article cites six direct quotes and four indirect quotes. The first two
direct quotes began with the first lady’s support of controlling the public sphere in comparison
to China’s social media control mechanism. The article moved further to reveal resistance from
a quoted tweet by a Nigerian resisting her statements by explaining the negative implication of
China’s social media authoritarian model. The following three quoted sources presented
resistance of the Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill (2019) by different
Nigerian activists, insisting that social media is the hope of the ordinary citizen. The four
indirect quotes come from the first lady, Human rights watch, and activists resisting the bill.
This goes further to suggest that the Irish Times did not rely on only sources from the state.
Also, the news organisation employed sources from human rights organisations and media
124 activists to create a balance in mediating the impact of the Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill (2019) to a global audience.
5.5 Identification
According to Fairclough (2003, p164) “what people commit to themselves to in texts is an important part of how they identify themselves, the texturing of identities”. The social actors and events of Sahara Reporters and The Irish Times were presented in the previous sessions. This session utilises the representations to deduce the writer’s ideologies.
5.5.1 SaharaReporters
SaharaReporters article opens with a headline that attracts the reader’s attention with the use of “Buhari’s wife” to emphasize on the statement, followed by a lead paragraph that describes its use of “Buhari’s wife” to begin the headline of the article. The next words follow a narrative structure. As observed in the sentence headline, the writer evaluated the narratives in the headline through its sentence: “Buhari’s wife backs hate speech bill, says Nigerian
Government Needs to ‘control’ like China” (Sahara Reporters, Nov. 30, 2019, p1). According to Francis (1994, p85), “a retrospective label serves to encapsulate or package a stretch of discourse …. it is presented as equivalent to the clause or clauses it replaces”. This notion is employed in the headline of Sahara Reporters, as the catastrophic use of the word ‘backs’ serves as the writer’s evaluation of how the state supports the hate speech bill.
The evaluation is further revealed through the use of quotes from the first lady’s speech:
“on the issue of social media, you cannot just sit in the comfort of your house and tweet that the Vice President has resigned. It is a serious issue”. The article also ends with the quote “If
China can control over 1.3bn people on social media, I see no reason why the Nigerian
Government cannot attempt controlling only 180m people” (Ibid.). The writer is taking a stance against the social media bill but reporting its concerns emotionally by revealing only the repressive statements from the first lady without adding a wider analysis to the bill.
125 5.5.2 The Irish Times
The Irish Times article begins with a headline that attracts the attention of readers through the use of the phrase ‘under fire’ (Hayden, Dec. 2, 2019, p1), followed by a sub- headline that captivates the message to its readers. However, the Irish Times gives more information to the content of the social media bill through its narratives, in opposition to the evaluative stance in SaharaReporters article. The events are narrated, and every paragraph of the article explains the repressive nature of the social media bill by non-state actors.
5.6 Multimodal Discourse Analysis
As suggested by Fairclough (1999, p146), it is important to include visual images while carrying out CDA because readers perceive events through the images. Sahara Reporter’s article included one image that can be analysed, but the Irish Times did not include any image.
According to Kress and Van Leeuwen (1999, p370), viewing of the objects from a distance affects image perception, including six distances such as;
1) Intimate distance – can view the head only
2) Close personal distance – can view head and shoulders
3) Far personal distance – can see the person from the waist up
4) Close social distance – can see the entire person
5) Far social distance – the person is viewed with space around them
6) Public distance – four or five people can’t be viewed
The only image used in Sahara Reporters article (SaharaReporters, Nov. 30, 2019), shows the first lady of Nigeria – Aisha Buhari giving a speech, addressing an audience while standing at a far personal distance. Readers are connected to the action taken place in the image through the photograph taken at a far personal distance. This connection suggests to the readers that this is the preferred handling of the situation.
5.7 DISCUSSION
126 Van Dijk (1993) suggests, Critical Discourse analysts are not primarily interested in contributing to a particular school, discipline or theory, but are interested in solving pressing social problems through discourse analysis. This chapter adopts Van Dijk’s notion throughout the analysis of the corpus policy documents, as it focuses on resolving problems surrounding civil society organisations in Nigeria. This chapter is in support of the argument by (Oladapo and Ojebuyi, 2017, p107) because, in a repressive state, where liberal values are limited by state power, citizens take to the digital sphere to question the legitimacy of the state. The public sphere should expect the rise of hate speech (Aghadiegwu and Ajao, 2017) or even false statements from the public. Such behaviours should not be termed as carefree behaviours leading to fines and imprisonments, but rather, the negative impacts of colonial legacies as regards the traditional justice system of Nigeria. For democracy to thrive, the Nigeria traditional justice system should be decolonised, and the civic spaces should promote public debates, irrespective of whether or not the discourses are abusive or false (Ibid.).
Similarly, this chapter argues in line with liberal democratic values (Vincent and Tunde,
2018). How can we differentiate between data that threatens national security and data that seeks to question the legitimacy of the state? For instance, a recent bill such as the Frivolous
Petitions and Prohibitions Bill (2015) analysed earlier on, proposes to give a death sentence to online data containing anti-military/anti-governmental discourse. What specific class of data can be classified as hate speech? Is it data that was generated by human rights activists, intending to advocate for a better democratic nation, or is it user-generated data with grievances towards the state? Or data from extremist terrorist groups? Narratives of state-run hegemony come to play here, considering state censorship in the Nigeria digital media sphere (Akuhwa,
2015, p69).
The President Buhari administration supported the Frivolous Petitions Prohibitions Bill
(2015) and suggested hate speech offenders be punished in line with the Anti-Terrorism Act
127 (2011) (Oladapo and Ojebuyi, 2017, p107). According to the Nigerian state authorities,
continuous religious insurgents from the Boko Haram terror group in Nigeria informed the
decision on the drafting of the proposal. In the state’s opinion, hate speech and fake news
disseminated via social media promote the organising and mobilisation of religious militia
terror groups in Nigeria (Ibid.).
The Frivolous Petition Prohibitions Bill (2015) led to an uproar of Nigerian Citizens
with respect to freedom of expression. Visibility was inherent through protests on Twitter, with
the hashtag #NOTOSOCIALMEDIA BILL (Oladapo and Ojebuyi, 2017, p107), in addition to
the collective action on physical environments, with the hashtag #MARCHTONASS, to resist
enactment of the proposal (Ibid.). This chapter argues in line with the collective actions of
ordinary Nigerian citizens that aided in the withdrawal of such a bill to limit freedom of online
speech, which was supported by President Muhammadu Buhari, the Executive President of
Nigeria (Eribake, 2015). Abusive statements and false statements connote different meanings
because abusive statements could be termed as hate speeches and false statements as fake news.
As such, they should be separated, rather than stating that it is prohibited to post any abusive
statement knowing same to be false. The spread of fake news on social media is a problem that
many repressive regimes in the globe are making efforts to tackle, such as China, Russia, Egypt and France (Feldstein, 2019; Nikolayenko, 2019; McKeever, 2019; Unver, 2019).
According to Oladapo and Ojebuyi (2017), the Frivolous Petition Prohibition Bill
(2015) to limit freedom of speech in Nigeria was resisted by global media and human right
activists. Nigeria is a nation that suffered repressive regimes during the military era (Akor,
2017), and forward to the aftermath of the attainment of democracy in 1999; the nation still
records low ratings in press freedom in comparison to other democratic-led African nations
(Freedom House, 2015). Cases of censorship on media-government relations are recorded, as
well as frequent clamping down of journalists and media houses (Human Rights Watch, 2017).
128 However, the press system of operations in Nigeria has evidenced narratives of partisanship and lack of “professionalism as a result of ownership influence” (Ojebode and Oladapo, 2018), institutional, political bias and house style.
Moreover, this chapter observes evidence of resistance of the Frivolous Petition
Prohibition Bill (2015) from human rights activists in Nigeria and citizens. The International
Press Centre and a former Governor of Ekiti State of the People’s Democratic Party, Governor
Peter Ayodele Fayose, resisted the bill in his tweets. BBC News Pidgin published the tweets on the 4th of March 2018, stating that “on this issue of hate speech, I stand with Nigerians and anything they say to make the country better. Those of us occupying public offices are doing so in trust for the people; we are not their lords. The power of the people is greater than the power of the people in power” (Chiakera, 2019). Similarly, more resistance of the bill to limit online free speech is evidenced in an article (Thompson, 2018). Professor Adibe of political science at Nasarawa state university resisted the bill by stating that “it could be used to curtail speech, to frighten people, the whole essence of freedom of speech, which is the bedrock of democracy itself, would be killed”. It is very difficult to make a distinction between what people call hate speech and offensive speech. Offensive speech may be uncomfortable, but it is generally accepted, and it contributes to the whole marketplace of ideas on which democracy thrives (Ibid.).
Professor Adibe added that with the rising ethnic tensions in Nigeria, a free and transparent media is vital to the democratic process in the 2019 elections, at the time of writing, as the earlier conducted 2015 election recorded a first-hand peaceful democratic transition of government. Similarly, the head of reporters without borders Africa – Arnaud Froger, resisted the bill. He asserts; “we feel like the legislation could be turned into an instrument of censorship. Instead of getting more and more people rightfully pursued hate speech, we find more and more outspoken journalists prosecuted for hate speech” (Thompson, 2018).
129 The Frivolous Petition Prohibition Bill (2015) presented a narrative on how citizens of
a nation can utilise the powers vested on social media to uphold freedom of expression
(Oladapo and Ojebuyi, 2017, p109). The reactions of many ordinary Nigerians through Twitter
and other social media platforms pushed the rejection of the enactment of the bill. The timing
of the bill coincided with the global movement for the inclusion of youths in ensuring
accountability in governance (Action Aid, 2015). The kind of direct involvement in
governance, which ActionAid proposes, remains an inspiration in Nigeria where governance
is still the preserve of the old politicians who have continued to recycle themselves in power
(Omodia, 2007; Ogundiya, 2010; Charles and Osah, 2018; Ayumba, 2019). In the current
democratic dispensation at the time of writing, Nigeria slides backwards in youth
representation in governance as known old faces were nominated, elected and appointed into
major political offices (Oladapo and Ojebuyi, 2017, p109).
Nigerians have constituted a virile community of civil activists in social media, and
Twitter has emerged as the hub of civic mobilisation in the country (Chiluwa and Adegoke,
2013). While they are structurally excluded from mainstream political power, Nigerians,
mainly youths, utilise Twitter and other social media to contest and negotiate the actions and
decisions of government in the light of the implications of those actions and decisions on the
citizens and democratic development. Traditionally, the role of defending democracy is
entrusted to the press. That is why constitutional protection of the freedom of the press is
characteristic of democratic countries. Over the years, though, constitutional provision for
freedom of the press does not automatically translate into a free press (Ibid.). However, Price
(2019) asserts that democracy has a binary character, and the reality in the west is that it is systemic. In other words, in the West, democracies survive through institutionalisation in three forms;
1) It is not the institutionalisation of political parties but the institutionalisation of part systems as a whole that has fostered the prospects for democratic survival in Europe
130 2) There is a threshold of systemic institutionalisation which, once reached, will avoid democratic collapse 3) Systemic-over institutionalisation does not seem to be so perilous for the survival of the democratic party (Casal Bertoa, 2017).
Opportunities have been offered for transparent democratic operations in Nigeria
through the opportunities of a public hearing, for the entire citizens to debate, and deliberate
on policies that do not affect their daily lives positively and for inclusion to be the social order
of the day (NASS, 2019). The recent enactment of data privacy by NITDA that provides for the protection of Internet users in Nigeria from infringement of fundamental freedoms guarantee the application of human rights for users of digital media platforms, with state interference (Greenleaf, 2019).
Evidence from the literature suggests similar events where citizens are protesting on hate speech proposals and Acts in the global arena. They are; Tan (2019) petition to Singapore
Government against protection from online falsehoods and manipulation bill, with 2054 signatures, Okunrinboye (2019) petition to the Nigerian state on social media bill that criminalises hate speech with 79,208 signatures and Youths Lead Now (2019) petition to
Nigerian Government resisting Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill
(2019) with 43,014 signatures. Such events suggest that mass resistance of legislative proposals that criminalises the spread of dissenting public discourse is a global problem.
Thompson (2018) referred to online hate speeches as offensive speeches, because
according to his opinion, offensive speech is needed for citizens to mediate on issues affecting
society. Sahara Reporters article and the Irish Times article possesses strengths and
weaknesses in conveying the message of the Protection from Internet Falsehoods and
Manipulation Bill (2019) to its readers. The Irish Times did not include any image in reporting the support of the bill by the first lady of Nigeria at the time of writing, but they both convey the message of restrictions of freedom of speech. However, Sahara Reporters included an image to represent how the state establishes and maintains order through regulations of
131 dissenting public discourse which is similar to the British colonial rule in Nigeria where the
“colonial officials successfully arrogated to themselves extensive legal powers to deal with perceived threats to law and order” (Ibhawoh, 2002, p74). Although an image was presented by Sahara Reporters to present its analysis, there was minimal information on the content and intent of the bill. Similarly, the Irish Times did not include any image, but the content and intent of the bill were clearer to its readers through a wider analysis of the bill revealing sources from the state and non-state actors.
Findings from this chapter reveal that there are calls for the closing of civic spaces through drafting of legislative proposals and presenting such legislations to the lower and upper chambers of the National Assembly of Nigeria (Olowolagba, 2017). The past and present democratic regimes from 2009 to date contributed to the development in a bid to limit dissenting public discourse. However, resistance measures by civil society organisations such as SPACES FOR CHANGE, Centre for Social Justice, leaders of NGO’s and human right activists are against such state censorship (Ibid.). Moreover, evidence from the literature in chapter three suggests that there is a global call for freedom of speech, so it is not just a Nigerian problem, but a global problem.
This chapter suggests that some speeches that could be classified as hate speeches may not be criminal per se but are uttered intending to promote democratic values, and for mediating the society. Furthermore, for hate speech to be labelled as a hate crime, it should pass through proper vetting by an unbiased director of the hate crime office. Similarly, it should contain contents such as those represented by the recent IPOB movement group in Nigeria (Ugwuanyi and Ekwueme, 2018; Ojukwu and Oni, 2018; Ekpo and Agorye, 2018), and the Boko Haram
Terrorist Group (Clubb, 2018; Nnam et al., 2018; Onuoha and Samuel, 2018). Some dissenting public discourse that criticises the state could be uttered for the state to make amends to stringent policies, or to attract either local or international bodies on bad governance.
132 In the same vein, this thesis argues that for good governance with better democratic
values to occur in Nigeria, such as democratic conditions where press freedom is achieved,
poverty alleviated, good health and educational facilities in conformity to international
standards are provided in all the six geopolitical zones of the nation, fuel crisis ceases and pump
fuel price reduced to at least forty naira per litre, inequalities eliminated, marginalisation in
rights and gender becomes obsolete, that is when dissenting public discourse such as fake news
and hate speech could be reduced in the Nigeria polity. Chapter three provides evidence that
Nigeria is not there yet, as regards to good democratic values in comparison to leading
democratic nations such as the US, UK and Germany (Diamond, 2016), and as such the public
sphere should be unregulated, for debates and discussions with legitimate interests, and for the
state to validate policies, and also for activists to mediate if elected and appointed representative officers in various cadres of government in the six geo-political zones of Nigeria are carrying out their duties in the interest of the led (Akor, 2017).
US, UK and Germany support local NGO’s and human rights organisations in Nigeria, to promote human rights (Hoffman, 2016; Sandlin, 2018; Gegout, 2019). Moreover, in some situations where aids are presented to internally displaced persons, the values are misrepresented, and the representatives often face a crisis (Ahmad, 2017). For instance, the
Boko Haram crisis is supported by ICRC - a German NGO with relief materials at the time of writing (Brauman, 2017, p5). Similarly, at the time of writing, the organisation faces prejudice, in the sense that, the Boko Haram terrorist group are chasing them out of their geographical region. They do this by performing acts of violence and making demands from the state to shut down the operations of international humanitarian organisations (Emannuelar, 2015, p285).
Human right activist groups resisted the NGO Regulatory Bill (2017) (Olowolagba,
2017). Some of which include; Femi Falana – a human right activist in Nigeria. In his statement to an indigenous newspaper in Nigeria – Daily Post, he termed the NGO Regulatory Bill (2017)
133 in Nigeria as a “worst piece of legislation in the history of Nigeria” (Ibid.). Similarly, the bill threatens the existence of a free and fair independent civil society in Nigeria. He attended the
National Assembly public hearing of the NGO Regulatory Bill (2017) on December 13 and 14,
2017. Femi Falana urged Speaker Dogara to reject the bill, as it goes against the constitutional rights of the citizens of Nigeria, as provided in s40 of the 1999 Nigerian constitution, Articles
21 and 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Nigeria is a state party (Olowolagba, 2017).
Furthermore, the NGO Regulatory Bill (2017) offers the deregistering of NGO’s that are not working in the interest of the state. The bill denies local and international associations and suggests the denial of the registration of new NGO’s with the goal of human rights advocacy on vague grounds, stating that they are not in line with the government’s programmes. Moreover, charity associations and organisations that are operating without registration shall face criminal convictions as provided in the bill. Femi Falana further states that the bill “places undue restrictions on the right to freely associate, which is a fundamental freedom and essential component of democracy, as recognised by the United Nations Human
Rights Council” (Olowolagba, 2017). He suggests that if the bill eventually gets enacted, he shall “vigorously challenge it in court on the grounds of its unconstitutionality and incompatibility with Nigeria’s international and regional human rights obligations and commitments” (Ibid.).
Other activists also joined in the resistance of the NGO Regulatory Bill (2017). Bishop
Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Catholic, who attended the public hearing, in his speech mentioned that “he stands with the civil society, without civil society, democracy would be in danger. The civil society is central to democratic governance and performance, which formed part of the reason why I formed the Kukah Centre. The debate is important because the political class has developed a feeling of disregard for the value of civil society. Although the intentions
134 of the bill are noble, the approach needs to be reviewed” (Olowolagba, 2017). Human right
activist Comrade Abdul Oroh also resisted the NGO Regulatory Bill (2017) stating that it
intends to cripple civil society organisations in Nigeria, who are only seeking for good
governance in Nigeria (Ibid.).
Leaders of Nigerian Civil Society organisations in Nigeria was not in support of the
NGO bill and argued that “there is sufficient legal framework for regulating civil society and
charitable operations in Nigeria” (Ibid.). Similarly, s15 and s20 of the NGO Regulatory Bill
(2017) was also resisted by the Centre for Social Justice in Nigeria, stating that the provisions are vague, and offers unchecked discretionary powers to the Minister of Interior. In s29 of the bill, the provision for surrendering of assets to the NGO regulatory commission was also resisted by BEARS foundation. However, Amnesty International rejected the provisions of the bill on the ground that violates freedom of expression and attempts to limit how individuals organise themselves. Centre for Democracy and Development stated in the hearing that organisations like theirs would be put at risk if NGO Regulatory Bill (2017) is enacted. In the hearing, it was noted that the sponsor of the NGO Regulatory bill (2017) was not present to defend the bill, as observed by Seun Onigbinde of BudGIT representing Open Alliance
(Olowolagba, 2017). SPACES FOR CHANGE director - Victoria Ohaeri, was of the notion that the NGO Regulatory Bill (2017) violates the provisions of constitutional rights in the Nigerian
Constitution. She further questions the bill; how can a nation like Nigeria, which faced recession in recent times, and trying to recover from the recession, secure funds for the establishment of a regulatory agency for NGOs (S4C, 2018)?
The NGO Regulatory Bill (2017) which connotes state censorship is similar to China’s new overseas NGO management law, where it was argued that the state enacted the legislation for their interests (Hsu and Teets, 2016). There are pieces of evidence from the above discourses regarding the resistance of NGO Regulatory Bill (2017). This thesis further argues
135 in light of the above resistance from civil society, why is the NGO Regulatory Bill (2017) still passing through readings, and awaiting enactment at the time of writing, despite calls for a total rejection of the bill? Restriction of freedom of speech limits the ability of the Nigerian media, and Nigerian citizens to defend the nation’s democracy, despite “the fundamental assumption that survival of democracy is unsure without a free press that provides a good platform for the public debates” (Oladapo and Ojebuyi, 2017, p107). Requisite to the partisan nature of the conventional media in Nigeria (Ismail, 2011; Ayodele, 1988; Jibo, 2003; Oso, 2012), the use of social media created an alternative media platform where citizens can freely air out their views on certain policies of the state and disaffections of democratic values (Ekeli and
Onobakhare, 2013). They do this by performing a democratic debate on the digital media sphere. Ordinary Nigerian citizens utilise the affordability of social media to communicate as provided by Web 2.0 technologies in the dissemination of socio-political commentary
(Campbell and Kwak, 2012; Chatora, 2012; Liu, 2014; Vesnic-Alujevic, 2012 cited in Oladapo and Ojebuyi, 2017, p108).
The public hearings organised by the Legislative Arm of Government in Nigeria provides opportunities for the ordinary citizens to participate in the process of enactment of legislation that could affect them positively or negatively, and by so doing, if the ordinary citizens believe that a bill that is about to be enacted that would impact negatively towards the wellbeing of the ordinary citizens decide to take to the digital media sphere to resist such bill, why are such practices criminalised? Furthermore, this chapter suggests that the provision of opportunities for public hearings in democratic processes in Nigeria is just for formality purposes because the elites of the society are not ready to embrace human rights and decolonise the justice system, and whenever there is time for an election, one begins to find various bills from the leaders in a bid to restrict the public sphere. Democratic nations should be living in an era where human rights advocates should be elected into official positions for sustainable
136 policies to be enacted in favour of all classes of people, which goes against elitism (Idike et al.,
2019). This, in turn, would improve the growth of the economy, and society at large. This
chapter contributes to knowledge by developing Yusuf (2018, p27) argument that there is “a
need to engage with the implications of colonisation, as it will shape and condition transitional
justice processes”. Similarly, this chapter contributes to knowledge by revealing Greenleaf
(2019) notion of the need for Nigeria to have a Data Protection Act that is free from state
interference. The chapter calls on the NITDA to produce a Data Protection Act in accordance
with the United Kingdom’s 2018 Data Protection Act (HMSO, 2018).
However, as regards hate speech, in as much as the chapter is against such anti-social
behaviours by the ordinary citizens against the state authorities, if the economy of democratic
nations continues to improve rather than falling into recession, and policies are put in place to
foster good democratic values, then dissenting public discourses on social media platforms
would be reduced to a minimum. If a majority of the citizens are unhappy with the policies of
the state, and the economy is not working in favour of the ordinary citizens, then in a nation
like Nigeria, where there is growing ethnic and class antagonism (Yakubu, 2019), the ordinary
citizens will continue to take to social media and air out their views in an offensive manner.
Furthermore, President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his swearing-in speech at the advent of democratic governance in the year 1999 in Nigeria (Gore and Pratten, 2003, p212) promised to protect democracy. To promote transparency in the Nigerian society, and for social justice to prevail, this thesis suggests that any elected officer to man the affairs of the nation in the building of a sustainable economy should enact policies that would improve the growth of democratic values in Nigeria, which as evidenced in the background of the study presented earlier on in chapter one, there are pieces of evidence of a low state of freedoms in many democratic nations, which leads to the practices of liberal authoritarian democracy
(Abramowitz, 2019).
137 According to Okoh and Chukwueke (2016, p2), s38 of the Cybercrime Act (2015), which gives service providers consent to store users’ data is a “regulatory load particularly on the telecommunication sector and interferes with the regulatory competence of the Nigerian
Communications Commission - NCC. The measure is a duplication of efforts such as the SIM registration initiative. It may indeed be redundant as the NCC is empowered by s64 of the
Nigerian Communications Commission Act (2003) to gather the same information” (Ibid.).
Similarly, s21 of the Cybercrime Act (2015) was resisted, stating explicitly that; the duty imposed by s21 is potentially arduous, requiring the report of all attacks or disruptions to the
Nigeria Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). Yet, the Act itself does not define these terms and does not refer to the severity or success of the attack. A financial institution in its ordinary business may be subject to multiple attempted breaches or other disruptions. The requirement to report all such occurrences within seven days imposes a substantial duty on institutions, and a mandatory fine is imposed for failure to do so. Additionally, CERT may further disrupt the institution’s operations by denying it Internet access under s21 (Ibid.). Evans
(2019) also suggests that the enactment of legislation to monitor hate speeches in the digital media sphere in Nigeria, especially during and after election periods, is to minimise dissenting public discourse and to promote the selfish desires of the state.
In new media spheres such as Facebook and Twittersphere, which promotes political participation, for ordinary citizens to participate and communicate freely on social media, some regulations restrict the everyday practices while participating/communicating on such technology-driven platforms. For social justice to be achievable in a developing nation like
Nigeria, it is pertinent for the digital media sphere to be unregulated, and advocates of peace, justice and reconciliation to utilise social media as a means of organising/mediating society to be democratic as opposed to the failed transitional justice system by General Abdusalami
Abubakar (Yusuf, 2018, p16). If a policy is existent in the Nigerian society that tends to
138 criminalise human right advocacy such as the NGO Regulatory Bill (2017), then this thesis begs to ask a succinct question; does the Nigerian state authorities benefit from restrictions of freedom of speech? In this scenario, this thesis further suggests that the Nigerian state authorities may benefit from the restriction of freedom of speech in a bid to “continue a colonial tradition of law-making” (Ibid.). Also, for democratic values to be suppressed so that the elites will continue to control its resources in a manner that is beneficial to the state, which aggravates class antagonism. How can such discourses be averted? The Nigerian Legislative Arm of
Government organises public hearings before the enactment of any legislation. Although human right lawyers and activists have attended hearings to resist the NGO Regulatory Bill
(2017) as presented above, the ordinary citizens of Nigeria should engage in continuous protests digitally and physically to remind the leaders of their constitutional rights and to also persist for the “shaping of transitional justice processes” (Yusuf, 2018, p27) in Nigeria. This chapter fulfilled the objective of considering the impact of social media legislation on protest groups by revealing resistance of bills depicting censorship by Nigeria human rights organisations.
139 CHAPTER SIX
6.0 INTERVIEW ANALYSIS
As illustrated in chapter four, semi-structured interviews were conducted with human rights activists in Nigeria using a “snowball sampling” research technique (Woodley and
Lockard, 2016). The participants were difficult to find due to the nature of the research topic being a sensitive topic that affects the everyday life of Nigerian citizens. The process involved personal messaging two human rights activists on Facebook about my research study, seeking consent from them to participate in my study. Fortunately, they both agreed to be participants in my study, which prompted me to appeal to them to suggest more participants for my study.
State censorship and resistance measures by Nigerian activists to protect democratic values, urge this chapter to analyse the interview data along the lines of post-colonialism (Bhabha,
1994; Said, 1978; 1980; Spivak et al., 2006).
Aside from the contacts received from the initial two participants, I tried reaching some other activists online, and they declined to take part in the study. This chapter adopts transdisciplinary approach in the analysis, as presented in chapter four, which is a combination of a theory of the state, political economy analysis and a form of CDA (Jessop, 2004;
Fairclough et al., 2006; Yusuf, 2018). Similarly, obstacles were identified to address the social wrong, by analysing dialectical relations between semiosis and other social elements: between orders of discourse and other elements of social practices; between texts and other elements of events. Select texts, and focus on categories for their analysis, in the light of and appropriate to the constitution of the object of research, carry out analysis of texts, both interdiscursive analysis, and linguistic/semiotic analysis (Fairclough, 2008, p10). The event analysed in this chapter is a multimodal discourse analysis of Amnesty International UK report on the demolition of media houses by state actors (Amnesty International UK, 2019).
6.1 METHOD OF RECORDING/TRANSCRIPTION OF INTERVIEW
140 An iPhone 7 mobile phone with voice recorder was utilised in recording the face to face interview sessions with each participant. The content from the recorded interview was further transcribed for analysis. According to Oliver et al. (2005), for a clear understanding of recorded interview data, noise should be removed from each transcription by denaturalising it to aid smooth-clear audio transcription of recorded data for further analysis. This method was implemented in the process of transcription of recorded data in order not to distort the raw data for a clear understanding of participants’ views. In carrying out the interview session with respondents, I presented two initial questions which set the pace for follow up questions from their responses. They are;
1) What social media platforms do you engage with?
2) Can you recount on occurrences in Nigeria that leads to mobilisation for protest
activities?
6.2 THEMES/VARIABLES FROM INTERVIEW SESSION
The purpose of this chapter is to find answers to the central research question: Is lack of data protection laws in Nigeria contributing to regulations for freedom of speech? To seek for answers to the central research question, some emerging themes from the interview sessions with human rights activists in Nigeria were analysed, with supporting evidence from the literature and policy analysis. Themes were further broken down into variables and sub- variables for subtle interpretation of the analysis. Respondents were anonymised to adhere to the code of conduct of good research practice. The activists interviewed in the interview sessions are represented with anonymous codes such as Justice 1, Justice 2, Justice 3, Justice
4, Justice 5, Justice 6, Justice 7, Justice 8 and Justice 9. The participants are all fluent English speakers.
6.3 THEME 1: REASONS FOR MOBILISATION
141 Sub variables that fell under this theme from the transcribed data include; State
Censorship, Unpopular Policies, Regulations, Neglect of Statutory Duties and Violence.
According to Tarrow (1998, p235), participants and leaders share ties to form a movement. It
is such ties, for example, political conditions, equality rights, people that share the same belief
or belong to the same social networks, that aids mobilisation for movements. As such academic
scholars with such approach ask questions such as; what caused a social movement to emerge,
rather than asking questions surrounding the foundation of a movement.
6.3.1 State Censorship
According to Clause Offe (1985 cited in Della Porta and Diani, 2009, p9), “movements develop a fundamental, meta-political critique of the social order and representative democracy, challenging institutional assumptions regarding conventional ways of doing politics”. Nigeria is regarded as a failed state by Odo (2015; Ojo and Nickolay, 2018). The previous democratic regimes in Nigeria since the inception of democracy have not yet embraced full democracy (Ibid.). The Goodluck Jonathan regime recorded the highest number of female representatives in ministerial and administrative positions (Ngara and Ayabam,
2013), as opposed to prebendalism, where positions are given to people from the same ethnic tribe or party faithful (Joseph, 2013; Bratton and Van de Walle, 1994).
Similarly, Ebele Jonathan signed a law that represented western liberal democratic
values such as the Freedom of Expression Act (2011), which gives freedoms to the entire
citizens of Nigeria to access public documents. However, this gave rise to the ordinary citizens’
right to air views for or against the legitimacy of their democracy (Duru, 2016). A Cybercrime
Act was enacted in 2015, which regulated freedom of speech, thereby limiting the free flow of
information as analysed in chapter five. Social media was utilised to mobilise ordinary citizens
to vote against President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (Omojuwa, 2015 cited in Udeogu et al.,
2017). Justice 1 emphasised on the recent controls/regulations of the social media by the Buhari
142 led regime, stating that “the Buhari regime in 2015 utilised the powers of propaganda to get into power. However, the opposition party PDP is utilising same propaganda on social media to gain victory in the 2019 polls, and the state is resisting it by enacting laws/regulations against hate speech and fake news on digital platforms”.
The three tiers of Government in Nigeria have their separate roles in leadership.
However, the constitution makes it mandatory for the Executive to vet all laws before enactment (Mbaya et al., 2013). This thesis suggests that to promote press freedoms, the state should desist from censoring the civic spaces to promote colonial legacies (Ibhawoh, 2002, p62). It reads;
The quest to assert imperial political and economic control over a largely restive population meant a certain measure of circumscription of the traditional rights and liberties, which local peoples had enjoyed, even as it introduced new regimes of codified rights. Such incidents of colonial rule as the doctrine of indirect rule, the arbitrary circumscription of the powers of traditional rulers, the creation of special courts to administer unwritten customary laws and administrative orders, the exercise of the powers of political detention and deportation, and the use of laws of sedition and censorship furthered British colonial hegemony but also had profound implications on the conditions of rights and liberties in the colony (Ibid.).
Little wonder, the state continues in the act of censorship of the digital sphere to further the
British colonial hegemony in the Nigeria polity. Similarly, a state such as Nigeria, where the major role of the Legislative Arm of Government is the enactment of laws to regulate various sectors, such body should be independent of their goals, and a committee should be appointed to checkmate whether or not they are performing their duties to protect democratic values.
6.3.2 Unpopular Policies
According to Yusuf (2018, p26), the political legacies of past leaders (especially democratic leaders who were former military leaders) prompts the introduction of unpopular policies in the Nigeria polity. It reads below:
Former military rulers have been conscious gatekeepers of their legacy of political misrule, grand corruption, gross violations of human rights and impunity. They remain keen to ensure that only one of their number or designated candidates who can be
143 trusted, hold the reins of political power where it matters most to pre-empt those responsible for impunity in the past from being brought to account. That aim has been generally achieved, particularly but not only at the federal level. Especially in the first elections after military rule, erstwhile military rulers (Governors, ministers and heads of strategic public institutions) contested and won elections as state governors and members of the federal parliament. Rich, retired senior military officers who had held political office played active and usually leading roles in sustaining and sponsoring candidates for elections. A former military governor and minister was senate president for eight years and is still member of the senate (Ibid.).
The Nigerian state authorities introduce unpopular policies to establish and maintain order. This is evidenced in the respondents’ statements. Justice 9 states;
Most of the times when people have been mobilised for protests, it has often been at instances where the Government may have introduced a policy, which is certainly detrimental to the interest of the majority of citizens.
Similarly, Justice 1 made mention of “totalitarianism” in every sector which is against the promise of a truly democratic state by President Olusegun Obasanjo at the advent of Nigeria’s democracy in 1999 (Gore and Patten, 2003, p12). Another major policy by the state that the
Nigerian ordinary citizens’ campaign for is, an increase in fuel price. As evidenced in Chapter
Three, in 2011, there was a large protest on social media, where the ordinary citizens in collaboration with Nigerian celebrities took to Twitter and Facebook to air out their grievances towards the increment of the fuel price. Nigeria citizens see the moderate price of fuelling as one of the major benefits they derive from the state (Gore and Pratten, 2003, p12). According to Justice 3, “when there is an increment in fuel price, we should expect that it would lead to protest because that is the only thing the people benefit from the government”. Justice 5 also made mention that the anti-fuel crisis protest in 2005 took the life of his executive director,
Chief U, which was against the human rights of a citizen. Justice 8 narrated the event that took place in the January 2012 protest on the increment of fuel price. In his statement,
The increase in fuel price was spontaneous in January 2012. Some of us anticipated that the Government was going to do that. You know this issue of trying to syphon the people, to punish the people further as far as I am concerned, there is inefficiency in Government, and the only way they do that is by increasing the pump price of fuel.
144 From the responses of activists interviewed and evidence from the literature, it is
pervasive that increment of the fuel price is a policy that the majority of Nigerian citizens frown
at. Similarly, other social factors that lead to mobilisation for protest activities are lack of social
amenities – electricity, good roads, good drinking water, increase in fuel price, and so on.
According to Idike et al. (2019), “agitations by sectional groups do not emanate directly from
the consciousness of already decapitalised and emotionally bruised ordinary citizens but are
driven by elitist forces of some form of material inducement”. This notion is evidenced from
the responses of interviewees. From the above discourses of human rights activists interviewed,
it is evidenced that the Nigerian state is not there yet when it comes to policies of the state with
good democratic values in conformity to western universal democracy (Vincent and Tunde,
2018). How can such discourses be averted? This chapter suggests that human rights lawyers
and activists should endeavour ordinary Nigeria citizens question the legitimacy of the state.
The legislative proceedings require public hearings before the enactment of policies of the
state; such opportunities often do not impact on the tiers of Government to cease to enact laws
that they feel are in the protection of the interest of the state.
This chapter also argues that such opportunities in the form of public hearings are
provided for international bodies to believe that democracy thrives, whereas, resistance from
the civil society organisations are often not looked into. It is evidenced that, the resistance from
the ordinary citizens on such hearings do not create much impact in the Nigeria polity. The
state often turns a blind eye to such resistance measures (Olowolagba, 2017).
6.3.3 NEGLECT OF STATUTORY DUTIES
According to Obasi (2005 cited in Idike et al., 2019), “the failure of the Nigerian bureaucracy to perform effectively and efficiently since independence is largely due to the neo- colonial capitalist character of the state. Emphatically, the economic and social base of a state determines its essence. Therefore, a state is invariably an instrument in the hands of the
145 minority for consolidating its dominance”. A major motive for mobilisation of protests is corruption, lack of payment of workers’ salaries, especially university academics, thereby causing nationwide ASUU strike and lack of social infrastructures. All the activists interviewed made many references to the theme as mentioned above - neglect of statutory duties by state.
According to Justice 7,
First, there are different accounts of political situations that lead to mobilisation. An example is the issue of power failure in Nigeria. It is one of the significant problems that has led to a series of mobilisation, and I can testify by saying that I am part of the people that are involved in the protests. Like where I reside, in Ajegunle, the Government have not been able to meet up to expectations.
Justice 3 states that “inadequate funds for education can make ASUU go on strike, which leads to protests by students of ASUU themselves, in collaboration with protests of corruption and electoral reforms”. Justice 9 spelt out reasons for mobilisation of protest activities such as;
neglect of statutory duties by the state in the form of Government irresponsibility, lack of basic amenities, electricity issue which is a big issue in Nigeria, where the private companies issue out estimated billing which is always outrageous that calls for mobilisation and protests across many communities in Nigeria. As we speak, there is one issue, the workplace issue where workers have to protest undue expectations in the workplace, the other one is also the Government irresponsibility, in terms of providing basic amenities cutting across local, state and Federal Government.
This chapter suggests that the state should look into fighting corruption which is a top priority of the present regime led by President Muhammadu Buhari, where he has ensured that policies are put in place to prevent the elites in the society from the looting of public funds
(Ekpo et al., 2016), which was a major issue in past regimes. With all the efforts made by
President Muhammadu Buhari, every other day, you log on to social media or online news media; you find out that people are still engaging in corrupt practices (Ahmed, 2018).
Corruption limits the progress of the development of the state, which leads to the decline of many sectors of the state. As evidenced by activists above, it is imminent that the ordinary citizens are mostly affected by the neglect of statutory duties by the state. The education agency
ASUU often embarks on strike for non-payment of salaries of academics, which creates a
146 negative impact on the students, as some students spend years to finish a course due to several
ASUU strikes.
Similarly, Wright Mills (2000, p9 cited in Price, 2019) is of the opinion that “the existence of elites depend on the ability of individuals to inhabit and control major institutions, which are the chief means of exercising power and of acquiring and retaining wealth, and the
media is a place for ambitious careerists”. This form of practice by the elites in the Nigeria
polity results to hate speech by the ordinary citizens on social media. If there are neglect of
statutory duties in the form of constant higher education shut down, students will go online and
air out all sorts of grievances at the state, which often leads to arrests and expulsion from
university, as narrated above by Justice 3. No sector of a state should be neglected for
democracy to be achieved to some extent. President Muhammadu Buhari is thriving in terms
of a minimum wage, as he recently increased the minimum wage to thirty thousand naira
(Onuah, 2019). However, unemployment rates are still very high. This chapter suggests that
for poverty to be alleviated to some extent in Nigeria, salaries and allowances of top politicians
of the state, such as the Legislative and Judiciary Arm of Government should be reduced for
the state to use the remains of those finances to finance sectors such as technology hubs,
factories and industries. This, in turn, would create employment opportunities for a large
number of youths.
Businesses are often regulated by the increment of business tax which attracts protests.
A state with unemployment crisis should embrace youths that engage in entrepreneurship, by
supporting their businesses, rather than frustrating their businesses through the constant
increment of tax and other mandatory regulations. Justice 3 further describes this discourse as;
“even in running businesses, whenever there is an increase in business tax, it usually attracts
protest”. However, the regulation of NGOs, as presented in chapter five (Olowolagba, 2017),
also contributes to mobilisation for protest activities. Nigeria is a sovereign nation-state that
147 promised liberal democratic values in conformity to western universal democracy in its
Nigerian constitution at the advent of democracy in 1999 (Gore and Pratten, 2003, p12).
However, after enacting of legislation to support such narratives, counter legislations arise to regulate already existing legislation.
6.3.4 VIOLENCE
According to Ibhawoh (2002, p74), “the aspiration to promote the rule of law and protect individual rights dominated official rhetoric concerning the administration of justice in
Nigeria. Colonial courts were expected to serve such a function no less than the courts in
England”. The implication of such colonial legacy in Nigeria is the establishment of Boko
Haram Insurgent group, and its major struggle is geared towards decolonisation from the western culture (Adesoji, 2011; Onapajo and Uzodike, 2012; Agbiboa, 2013). The Boko haram menace is a major force for mobilisation of protest activities, especially the kidnap of the
Chibok girls as described by Justice 3, which gained international recognition. The Bring Back our Girls hashtag spread across social media, as evidenced in Chapter Three (Duruji et al.,
2018). As at the time of writing, all the kidnapped Chibok girls are yet to be released, which led to the creation of fusion centres in Borno state, Nigeria to counter-terrorism (Izekor, 2017).
The Chibok girls’ protests brought forth an upsurge in the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan regime.
With the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari, as president in 2015, a promise was made to put a stop to the Boko Haram menace, but till the time of writing the terrorist group is operational. More recently, the Fulani herdsmen have been razing farms and killing innocent
Nigerians which has led to mobilisation for protest activities in Nigeria (Ibid.).
This chapter argues that such narratives impact negatively on the society, and as such citizens take to social media to air all manner of hate speeches at the state because some people have lost loved ones in the Boko Haram menace and the razing of farms by Fulani herdsmen
(Izekor, 2017). Adequate security measures should be put in place as regards the above
148 discourses to avert terrorism from Nigeria, as this is one of the major reasons for social media mobilisation on Nigeria’s digital media sphere. However, the literature suggests that the Boko
Haram Terror in Nigeria is politicised in favour of the military to increase the financial budget of the military (Duruji et al., 2018).
6.4 THEME 2: RESISTANCE ENVIRONMENTS
Sub variables that fall under the above theme include physical environment (Challenges and Prospects), Online Environment (Challenges and Prospects).
6.4.1 PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
According to Clark (2017), Habermas’s notion of the public sphere suggests that “the level of engagement depends on the current political events taking place within the public sphere offline, and users are more active during electoral campaigns”. Protests on physical environments have its challenges and prospects. Although it has been considered as the most effective form of resistance by human rights activists interviewed. In recent times, social media has been used for protest activities (Chiluwa and Ifukor, 2013). However, without physical forms of resistance, such protest often does not yield many results. Justice 3 stated thus;
we try as much as possible to utilise social media, but we use physical environments for it to be effective. If the action is not immediate, we organise a meeting to plan the action itself. Social media has its advantage, but it has to be merged by physical mobilisation because there are a lot of people that are not active on social media. For instance, Sowore of Sahara Reporters is contesting the election, but if you go to the grass-root levels, people do not know that Sowore is contesting. In a nutshell, you have to combine social media mobilisation with physical mobilisation to achieve effective action. According to Justice 5, “priority is placed on physical mobilisation because you can discuss with people, see the people, and let them understand the reason why you are mobilising”. The physical mobilisation has more benefit because you will reach out to more people on whichever campaign you want to carry out. Justice 6 organisation carry out protest activities on both physical and online, but the physical environments are more effective in the sense that social media must reflect the actions made physically.
149 6.4.2 ONLINE ENVIRONMENT
The evolution of social media aids protests activities to impact on a large heterogeneous audience (Castells, 2011; Epstein, 2015; De Luca et al., 2012). According to Justice 2,
Protests are carried out on both physical and social media. In Bayelsa, there is a Facebook community. People use social media very well in mobilisation. It is used for a conference meeting. During the meeting, they log me in. However, there are challenges of social media amidst its effectiveness and efficiency. The challenges of social media include infringement on people´s rights. Your opportunity of having access to social media does not mean that you will infringe on other people´s rights. For instance, sending pornographic images or videos to people on social media is uncalled for. People misuse the privilege to offend fellow users, especially when it is being used for mobilisation purposes, and others start posting irrelevant and offensive images to selected group members. I will not conform to criminality because I am using social media.
Justice 3 argues that;
People are more active on social media, than physically, because of the flexibility of operating from comfort zones. For instance, there was a time we wanted to organise a protest on unemployment state in Nigeria on social media. We expected that people would be involved physically. However, the response was low compared to the response we got on social media. Social media merged with physical mobilisation for prompt effectiveness.
Justice 5 stated that, up until 2012, physical environments were mainly utilised for social media. However, 2012 took a new turn and increased in social media mobilisation became popular. In his statement:
2012 was a major watershed, both for the nature of how the struggle is carried out, and measuring the mood of the people, which showed how social media have come of age, and how activists utilise social media to link up to organise, to mobilise, they even collaborate with physical environments. All of us go out every morning to engage in the physical environment, to sustain the struggle. Subsequently, you log on to social media and input what has transpired in different areas. That was the first time on a national basis that social media proved its worth in its effectiveness on protest activities.
From the responses of interviewees, social media aids the participation of activism to a large heterogeneous audience, but physical protests are more effective in the Nigeria polity.
However, this promotes slacktivism (Chiluwa and Ifukor, 2013; Hari, 2014; Njoroge, 2016;
Murphy, 2017), where you may not find many people in physical environments. The
150 affordability of engaging in protest activities from comfort zones such as social media promotes slacktivism, which is a major challenge of social media protests, and was evidenced in Nigeria in the 2012 fuel crisis protests (Hari, 2014), and the Chibok girls’ protests (Chiluwa and Ifukor, 2013).
6.5 THEME 3: IMPACT OF PROTESTS
Sub variables to be analysed under this theme include policing/coercion and surveillance.
6.5.1 POLICING/COERCION
As argued by Alberto Melucci (1982; 1989; 1996 cited in Della Porta and Diani, 2009, p9) “New actors do not so much ask for an increase in state intervention, to guarantee security and well-being, but resist the expansion of political-administrative intervention in daily life and defend personal autonomy”. Protest activities often lead to the arrest of activists, as described by respondents. Sometimes, the state sends in representatives to arrest activists and stop protests in Nigeria, especially in protests that involve issues of the state as described by respondents. According to Justice 4, when organising peaceful protests, the state authorities suppress the protest through the military, and the protests are often disrupted. This is similar to protest in the British colonial rule in Nigeria where law and order were maintained by
“suppressing riots, strikes and revolts” (Yusuf, 2018, p14). Justice 5 stated that they get picked up by the security agents, and in some cases, they try to stop the protest before it takes place.
In his statement;
The police and DSS use tactics to stop the protest, then when the protest takes off depending on who gives out the order, they also try to stop it sometimes, when you refuse to demobilise, arrests do take place. They get the leaders arrested. In some cases, they do not charge to court. While some charge to court, and after some days, they release and drop some charges. The fuel crisis protests of January 1, 2012, attracted policing of various activists”.
Justice 5 states;
151 after January 1, 2012 action, which was nationwide over the pump price of fuel, the following year, we had a memorial due to the success of that protest. Perhaps, the Jonathan Government saw it as political. Security forces assaulted us at Maryland.
Aside from policing as a mechanism by the state to monitor activities of human rights activists in Nigeria. Coercion is another tool used in forcefully threatening the activities of human right activists in Nigeria. Ibhawoh and Akinosho (2017, c8) described this discourse in their essays, as Nigeria’s second wave of dictators has increased coercion in the state, following a liberal authoritarian style of governance. Justice 2 described his experience of coercion while trying to mediate society.
Instantly, let me tell you, during the third tenure of OBJ, there was this constitutional review program that was done in Port Harcourt Rivers State, and could you believe I led a squad to resist that process. We were arrested. Fortunately, because of how I was leading my group, late L gave O order that my youth leader cannot be arrested, so they went back and said I was arrested on error. But the other activists were taken to court, and our human right lawyer released them.
Justice 4 narrated his experience; According to his statement,
Our executive director was eliminated on his way from Maiduguri to Abuja in 2005 after our protests. We lost C during the Military dictatorship. I was detained more than 17 times. When Abacha was in power, I was arrested alongside D, the national secretary in 1999. He was almost blinded. I was detained for 33 days. It was only when President Abacha requested for our release, that we were released.
The above responses by interviewees are similar to the earlier discussions in the literature in Chapter one, where there are pieces of evidence of policing and coercion of activists. Why is the right to free speech suppressed in the Nigeria polity? The past democratic regimes of Ebele Jonathan and the current regime of President Muhammadu Buhari are not left out in this discourse, as there are recordings of the high profile of arrest in both democratic regimes, as discussed in the literature in chapter one (Lailas Blog, 2016; Ogundipe, 2016;
Olowookere, 2016; Akasike, 2017; Ogundipe, 2017). However, evidence from the literature suggests that it is as a result of the existence of colonial legacies in the Nigeria polity (Yusuf,
2018, p14).
152 Justice 5 described how policing on social media has been on the increase in recent times due to the use of hate speech by media activists and journalists.
“We are not sure now what is happening on social media. It is not too obvious like countries like China, and every other country where policing is rampant. But this year, 2018, the Federal Government of Nigeria allocated 2.2 billion naira earmarked for the services of DSS to deploy security agents to curtail the spread of false information/hate speech on social media. I do not know how far they have gone, but they have budgeted 2.2 billion naira to that respect. Sometimes, when you mobilise on social media, the Department of State Security Service also invites you, and try to intimidate you, and make arrests. But you and I know that it is not for that, it is also to stop views that are not of the interest of the state.
However, policing and coercion comes to play to control the public sphere to protect national security (Mosselson, 2019). An activist interviewed – Justice 7 also attested that members of his organisation had been monitored and coerced due to their online protests.
According to Hanska et al. (2020), “politics is often about identity, and the politics of identity play out in public discourse”. From the responses above, this chapter observes that the Federal
Government of Nigeria is making efforts to control its public sphere, to identify possible threats to national security, thereby sorting out dissenting discourse that is anti-governmental. This thesis suggests that a state where s37 of its constitution provides for freedom of expression should be free from government interference. Hence, restrictions of dissenting public discourses should be flagged as a violation of civil rights. If a state claims to have liberal legislation, such as the newly enacted 2019 NITDA Act (Greenleaf, 2019), which claims to regulate privacy, why are there calls for the closing of civic spaces through the drafting of proposals and enactment of legislation to regulate cyberspace? This thesis labels such actions by the state as evidence of a liberal authoritarian, democratic state and also against the struggle for human rights and data justice. If there were to be a Data Protection Act in Nigeria that promotes democratic values without clauses of restrictions, then citizens of Nigeria would have what it takes to claim rights for data breaches.
6.5.2 SURVEILLANCE
153 According to Fuchs (2011), surveillance involves the “collection, storage, processing
and assessment of data about humans or group of humans by an actor to advance goals by
violence exerted with the help of the collected information upon the humans under watch”.
Social media increased surveillance/monitoring practices on digital platforms (Borlin and
Jerslev, 2018; Moore et al., 2018; Feldstein, 2019). Mahdawi (2018, p8 cited in Price, 2019) is
of the opinion that Facebook is more of a surveillance tool than a social networking site through
the revelation of Cambridge Analytica scandal, where Facebook was utilised in helping Donald
Trump win elections in the US (Chen, 2018). Surveillance is one practice that is utilised by
states and its institutions to maintain order (Jones, 2013; Giroux, 2015; Boykoff, 2007). In the
Nigerian polity, this thesis suggests that the state utilises surveillance technology on citizens as a result of media activists and ordinary citizens inciting hate speeches and the spread of fake news on social media (Aghadiegwu and Ajao, 2017). Social media increased participation of online activism to a large number of people. Similarly, it contributes to constant surveillance in everyday life, presented in the literature in Chapter two. Fuchs (2013), suggests that Social
media surveillance is a “techno-social process in which human actors make use of surveillance
technologies for monitoring human activities on social media”.
Moreover, Hayes (2012) argues that a “surveillance-industrial complex is emerging,
which poses considerable threats to society”. According to Justice 4,
We have had members of our student activists who have been invited to panels and have been suspended and expelled. They were arrested because the authorities monitored their social media posts, which shows the danger that lies with the use of social media. Authorities and Governments now have mechanisms in monitoring social media, which would also mean that many leading activists in Nigeria will have their phones or social media activities been regularly monitored.
Similarly, Justice 5 argues,
If we send notices of our protest activities out, the DSS become aware of it one way or the other, either through social media or otherwise. It is more accessible through social media for them to monitor us.
Justice 2 states,
154
Activists are being monitored on social media, so you must be sure of the facts you are putting up on social media. As for me, anything I put, the Police Inspector General of this country, the DSS of this country, the NIA of this country, and any other security agents are seeing it. The attitude and the psyche of the police must be looked into, because, you the fact that you are a policeman does not automatically mean that you will continue intimidating the ordinary citizens.
When organising protests on physical environments, surveillance also occurs. According to Justice 3,
There are cases where your assistant can be a spy. Sometimes, information leaks through too much of talking, careless documentation, careless sending of text messages, and such information can fall into the hands of security officials, because, they bug either your house, your car, your social media accounts, and so on.
From the responses of activists above, the state is increasing mechanisms of monitoring
practices by releasing huge sums of money for surveillance/monitoring of social media users
in Nigeria. As suggested earlier on, agreements should rather be made with technology
companies such as Google Dragonfly (Gallagher, 2019a) to censor hate speeches on digital
platforms, as against the allocation of huge sums of money to purchase surveillance software
in a bid to arrest mediators and promote commercialisation of data. However, chapter two
presented us with privacy-enhancing social media platforms that were created for non-
commercial purposes. Do mediators carry out protests through this medium? Responses from
all the activists interviewed suggests that they are not aware of privacy-enhancing social media platforms such as “Riseup.net, Autistici and Sindominio” (Dencik et al., 2016, p6), that is run by activists.
In other developing states, investigative journalists have been assassinated as a result of their mediation. According to Price (2019b), “besides the use of surveillance, the determination of the powerful to protect their assets and public reputation has led to the harassment, imprisonment, and even, in some cases, the assassination of investigative journalists”. They include; Jhamal Khashoggi who was killed in October 2018, Jan Kuciak and his fiancé Martina Kusnirova was shot the same year in Slovakia. Resistance measures by
155 citizens also led to the assassination of Slovakia Prime Minister. Similarly, in Malta, Daphne
Galizia was assassinated as a result of her findings of the corrupt practices of the Prime Minister
(Dallison, 2017).
6.6 THEME 4: FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Sub variables under this theme include Limited Freedom of Speech and Unlimited
Freedom of Speech.
6.6.1 LIMITED FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Social media journalism contributed to the blurring of lines between traditional journalism and citizen journalism (Manama and Kazeem, 2014). The ethical conditions of journalism allow for activism and advocacy (Ibid.). Justice 2 is of the notion that there is limited freedom of speech while communicating on social media platforms. He states;
You do not want to put yourself in danger and other persons, so it curtails freedom of speech. One is always very careful about what is posted on social media. Of course, what we do as an organisation is to post what is factual and see how to mobilise around it. However, that does not determine who is going to be arrested or victimised. We are in a global world where we see that information is circulated as best as possible. It is not about the information. It is about sustaining it. We have witnessed DSS arrest without charging to a criminal court. Recently, we have had cases of journalists who have been arrested and detained for more than a year. Lack of data protection legislation curtails freedom of speech.
6.6.2 UNLIMITED FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Justice 1 argues that lack of data protection legislation has not led to him limiting freedom of speech on social media platforms, because “you must be schooled, educated, and have your facts ready to face illegal arrests/monitoring by the state”.
Justice 3 states;
The state apparatus cannot in anyway disenfranchise the democratic rights of people not to express themselves. Permit me to say that, some time ago, I was in a class teaching, and I have to say that the constitution supersedes any other law. When the majority are dissatisfied with a lot of policies. An example is the privatisation of the power sector, which was sold under Ex-president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s administration for four hundred billion dollars.
However, Justice 4 argues;
156 Nobody should encourage hate speech because of the potential for social instability. Everything must be done to ensure we have a more decent conversation of cyberspace. There should be measures of filtering specific languages. I think Google and some of the Internet giants are beginning to work on some of these things so that when there are such speeches, it could be blocked. But I think the essence of what we are doing is not because of the potential of social instability, but it is more of political. In this case, it is essential to note that it is the Government that is gaining more from the use of hate speeches and propaganda.
6.7 Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Amnesty International UK report on the demolition of Nigeria Media houses by State actors
As suggested by Fairclough (1999, p146), it is important to include visual images while carrying out CDA because readers perceive events through the images. According to Kress and
Van Leeuwen (1999, p370), viewing of the objects from a distance affects image perception, including six distances such as;
1) Intimate distance – can view the head only
2) Close personal distance – can view head and shoulders
3) Far personal distance – can see the person from the waist up
4) Close social distance – can see the entire person
5) Far social distance – the person is viewed with space around them
6) Public distance – four or five people can’t be viewed
157
Fig. 2 Amnesty International (2019)
Amnesty International (2019) presented an image of a public distance, which may be argued as a preferred means to attract readers. The image above depicts the demolition of a
Nigerian media house by state actors. Although the images of the major actors represented in the above image are not clear enough for interpretation, the texts that follow the image depicts protest of staff and neighbourhood of a Nigeria radio station that was shut down by state actors through the means of intimidation and coercion. This goes further to prove the extent to which the Nigeria state authorities go in destabilising press freedom.
6.8 DISCUSSION
158 Although freedom of speech has been a long-fought war in Nigeria in the field of journalism (Manama and Kazeem, 2014), it is a global struggle. The analysis in this chapter suggests International human rights organisations such as Amnesty International (2019) are against the suppression of press freedom in Nigeria. However, in the Nigerian context, some activists are not bothered about the actions of the state, as presented by respondents. They still go ahead in mediating society as they wish, as some see it as a lifetime career to fight for social justice. Yusuf (2018, p26) suggests that “the powers of the Nigeria President make social transformation difficult to achieve because the President has wider constitutional powers than the American President which is a critical issue for any attempt at social transformation”. This chapter suggests that introduction of policies to establish and maintain order which prevents social media users from communicating freely on the Internet is not the solution to dissenting public discourse on social media platforms, owing to the notion that majority of citizens are aggrieved at the state due to declining state of democratic values in Nigeria.
From the above responses by Human Right activists in Nigeria, it is evidenced that they are aggrieved with the present state of democratic affairs in the nation. Citizens are embracing the calls for resistance on civic spaces for certain policies that do not augur well with the entire citizens of the nation, and also democratic values that do not conform to universally accepted democracies (Ojo and Nickolay, 2018). There are pieces of evidence of resistance of proposed policies that tend to limit freedom of speech on civic spaces. The state continuously proposes regulations with the intent of suppressing dissenting views, such as hate speech and fake news on civic spaces. This chapter suggests that human rights activists should make use of privacy- enhanced social media platforms such as Riseup.net, Autistici and Sindominio and resistance web platforms such as Tactical Tech collectives and Electronic Frontier Surveillance Self-
Defense (Dencik et al., 2016, p6), to communicate about dissenting views on digital spaces, as they are non-commercial platforms.
159 A state where there are high levels of corruption, poverty, inequality, unemployment,
class antagonism, neglect of statutory duties, the introduction of policies that are not favourable
to a large number of citizens should expect the spread of fake news and hate speeches on civic
spaces, because the capability and affordability of social media promote partisan journalism,
where every social media user communicates freely, as opposed to the mainstream media,
where news passes through the editorial board before it can be aired or read by citizens (Bennett
and Pfetsch, 2018). In the advent of new media, which promotes digital activism (Kaun and
Uldam, 2018), a nation-state like Nigeria where capitalism is at the forefront (Joseph, 2018,
c2), promoting class antagonism (Odo, 2015; Ojo and Nickolay, 2018), citizens utilise social
media platforms to convey their disaffections to the state.
This thesis suggests to the Nigerian state authorities to be more concerned about social transformation and decolonisation from the colonial justice system, by enacting democratic policies, as promised at the advent of democracy in 1999, by President Olusegun Obasanjo
(Gore and Pratton, 2003, p12). Similarly, we support the mediations by human rights activists on digital spaces because it is through social media that citizens in the Nigeria polity, mediate society in a manner that all classes can understand their thoughts on certain issues, without struggling to buy airtimes on mainstream media such as NTA and AIT, which is controlled by state actors (Spitulnik, 2017, c8). It is also evidenced by one of the interviewees – Justice 1,
that “social media is one of the best things that God brought for mankind”.
A nation-state with a constitution that permits freedom of expression on civic spaces
should expect dissidents. Technology companies should devise a means of censoring speeches
that are not conforming to the goodwill of the public, rather than the state regulating the
cyberspace. The advent of social media has given opportunities for everyone to become an
untrained journalist, as platforms like Facebook allow for the publishing of any material. In
light of such innovations, data contents depicting hate speech is expected in the Nigerian
160 society, and instead of enacting legislation to censor the public sphere, technological innovations should be put in place to censor hate speeches automatically.
However, Sogge (2019) believes that the restriction of civic spaces benefits international forces as well as repressive domestic states. He goes on to assert that the civic space encourages religious organisations to organise, as well as business organisations, trade unions, sport and culture societies, secret societies, and so on. NGO’s and human right defenders are not the only actors that occupy civic spaces, even though they garner high visibility. While some civic spaces shrink, others expand in promoting their activities.
Reactionary regimes such as Brazil under the leadership of Jair Bolsanaro mobilise through civil society. The restrictions of civic spaces by repressive leaders are to support domestic and foreign allies, and not just to suppress opposition leaders. In the development of states, private interests are the order of the day amongst the political class and are protected by the state. The state authorities collaborate with foreign corporations and non-state actors such as technology companies to monitor activists.
In leveraging civic spaces with powerful transnational levels of interests, countermeasures should be found at the same level (Ibid.). This discourse informed this chapter to contribute to knowledge by filling a gap in Spivak et al. (2006) Are we Postcolonial? Post-
Soviet space, which states that “there is a need for transitional justice theory and praxis to engage with the colonial legacy in postcolonial societies”. Yusuf (2018, p24) is of the opinion that the problems facing the transitional justice system in the Nigeria polity are “Nepotism and
Gatekeeping”. The provisions of public hearings to question the legitimacy of the state in the creation of policies does not augur well with the citizens, as their concerns are overlooked.
However, an activist stated that in the Nigeria polity, the state benefits more from hate speech and fake news than the ordinary citizens. It is also evidenced in the interview data that there is
161 totalitarianism in every sector in Nigeria, which exemplifies colonial legacies (Ibhawoh, 2002;
Yusuf, 2018).
As evidenced by Justice 4, the court awarded twenty-five million naira against the
Nigeria police and two hundred and fifty thousand naira to be handed over to him in respect to unlawful detention, without due process of law and ordered the police to return all their belongings that were scattered. As at the time of interviewing, that decision by the court has not been implemented. The Nigeria Police have not adhered to the court’s verdict. We can observe that even when an activist organisation took the police to court for violation of human rights, and the court charged them some certain amount to be paid, there is lack of direct, or enforced accountability. This chapter argues in line with the policy document analysis in the previous chapter. This thesis argues that the lack of clearly defined data protection Act is contributing to regulations for freedom of speech. If there were clearly defined laws that protect social media users’ data on civic spaces in the Nigerian context without state interference, then ordinary citizens can sue the state for infringement or violation of the law. Still, the law in itself does not prevent state/non-state monitoring on civic spaces (Lin, 2018). Should there be an existing law to protect digital activism and the protection of data in accordance to s37 of the
Nigerian constitution (1999), Nigerian citizens’ rights to data could be protected to some extent while mediating on civic spaces. This chapter fulfilled the objective of examining the weaknesses of social media regulations and paucity of data protection for Nigeria citizens through data derived from respondents.
162 CHAPTER SEVEN
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
7.0 THESIS OVERVIEW
Chapter one presented continuous mobilisations of social movement organisations on
repressive states to struggle for the protection of freedom of speech (Abramowitz, 2019;
Schenkann and Repucci, 2018). In Nigeria, the state authorities censor civic spaces through
policies as a result of the state’s dependence on Information Communication Technology
(Babajide and Odumesi, 2016). Jessop’s (2017) model of state power was the theoretical
underpinning of the thesis, where he asserts that; power has moved from the state to new
frontiers of power. This notion informed the thesis on its statement by arguing that without clearly defined data protection laws, the use of social media (as a platform through which to critique the state), becomes the means for gathering intelligence and enacting punitive justice over dissenting social actors. Chapter one fulfilled the objective of examining the rationale behind the lack of data protection laws in Nigeria through the background study.
Nuances of capitalism were presented in the introductory chapter. Dodd (1999, p19, cited in Price, 2017, p93) suggests that there are some limitations to Marx’s capitalist theory regarding “political potential of the working class”. Wrong (1999, p3 cited in Price, 2017, p91) argues that capitalism is an economic system which promotes a bourgeoisie society. Freedman
(1996, p169 cited in Price, 2017, p91) is of the opinion that “capitalist productions moves in contradictions”. However, Jessop’s (1990) model of capitalism was accepted by the chapter, which states that “modern states are capitalist states”. Similarly, Jessop (2017) asserts that there are no equal opportunities while exercising power nationally and internationally in modern sovereign states.
Theories of Post-colonialism (Bhabha, 1994; Said, 1978; 1980; Spivak et al., 2006) were examined with criticisms from Ella and Shohat (2012). Statecraft in Nigeria from the
163 Goodluck Ebele Jonathan regime till date was presented in chapter one. President Goodluck
Ebele Jonathan enacted the Cybercrime Act (2015) as a result of dissenting public discourse in
the 2015 presidential election. This legislation till the time of writing is the reason behind the
mass arrests of journalists and activists on civic spaces (Vareba et al., 2017). The state monitors
citizens through Wise Intelligence Surveillance system (Privacy International, 2014) purchased
by the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan regime. The chapter goes on to present the liberal authoritarian
style of governance in Nigeria, as a result of the nation-state model of hegemony (Osaghae,
2001; Thomas, 2017; Ogunnubi, 2018). This style of governance threatens pro-democracy values, especially freedom of speech. The research question of the thesis is; Is lack of data protection law in Nigeria contributing to regulations for freedom of speech? In answering the research question, research into the semi-structured interview of ten human rights activists was conducted, together with corpus policy documents from 2008 to 2019 as primary data.
Nuances of surveillance scholars were examined in the literature on surveillance. They include; Greenwald (2014), where he asserts that the Internet is deprived of its goals as a result of surveillance technology. Lyon (2014) suggests that the awareness of the digital surveillance state increased as a result of Snowden’s disclosures of NSA surveillance. Lyon (2015) indicates that the digital surveillance state contributes to the gradual loss of personal data. Fuchs (2012) is of the opinion that social media innovations (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and so on) prompted social media surveillance. However, Hayes (2012) argued that an industrial surveillance complex is emerging with threats to society. These threats were examined through the Intercept – an online news organisation. They are; Alexa surveillance technology (Lin,
2018) practices that gather users’ data to trace roots to terrorism. Amazon S3 cloud storage that collects sensitive unencrypted video files (Ibid.). Google’s Internet Censorship – Dragonfly that violates the privacy of users (Gallagher, 2019a). China’s Internet censorship and mass
164 surveillance technology “Aegis” – with a significant aim of monitoring pro-democracy campaigners (Gallagher, 2019b).
Similarly, Facebook violates users’ privacy by enabling 100 smartphones to track data of citizens in 50 countries (Biddle, 2019b). However, Hacktivist groups such as Lulzsec and
Anonymous perform monitoring practices on activists, which helped in revealing how “Dow chemical hired Stratfor to spy on the culture-jamming activists’ groups – Yes Men” (Lee,
2018). The collaboration of state and technology giants such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, in developing surveillance technology to perform monitoring and censorship exemplifies
(Klein and Zuboff, 2019) new frontier of power). Moreover, in Nigeria, the security agents responsible for curbing crime is the Nigeria Police Force, the Joint Intelligence Board, the
Federal Investigations and Intelligence Bureau, The States Security Service, The National
Intelligence Agency and the Defence Intelligence Agency (Ashaolu, 2012).
Internet control agencies in Nigeria are; the Nigerian Communications Commission and the National Information Technology Development Agency. The NCC, NITDA,
Cybersecurity experts, Office of the National Security Adviser and Paradigm Initiative – a civil liberty organisation in Nigeria collaborate for Internet censorship and surveillance in Nigeria
(Babajide and Odumesi, 2016). Big data analytics is utilised by the Nigeria Security agencies to detect crime (Nwanga et al., 2014). New forms of web resistance platforms were examined, which includes; Tactical Tech Collectives and Electronic Frontier Surveillance Self Defense
(Dencik et al., 2016, p6). Similarly, non-commercial social media platforms such as
Sindominio, Riseup.net and Autistici exist to protect the privacy of personal data.
Human rights activists are termed as extremists/terrorist in some nations (Harbisher,
2015; Monaghan and Walby (2012). The chapter asked a question on what prompts intelligence agencies to term activists as extremists. The result in Nigeria, as suggested by Osaghae (2008) is the behaviour of the younger citizens, the Niger Delta social movement organisation
165 (MEND) that portray violent behaviours on civic spaces, as well as agitate for the well-being of the people of the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. Similarly, the Boko Haram that utilises the public sphere for a religious, social movement organisation, but has now grown into a terrorist organisation.
Chapter three presented the definition of social movements by different scholars. They include; Castells (2012) assertion that revolutions are seizing public spaces. Melucci (1995) asserts that cultural analysis of social movements came to existence as a result of the evolution of communication technologies. Habermas is of the opinion that the Internet constitutes a public sphere (Salter, 2013). He criticised Dahlgren (2005), who adopted Habermas public sphere theory in his analysis of the Internet, stating that it lacks appropriate “hermeneutic methodology”. In Nigeria, protests occur as a result of the protection of citizens well-being, especially freedom of speech (Hari, 2014). However, Shirky (2011) posits that repressive governments make use of social media to suppress dissent. This form of suppression was examined in the literature. It was found out that Nigeria utilises anti-democratic bills in averting dissenting public discourses. They include; “1995 draft proposal of Electronic crimes, 2011 cybersecurity Bill, 2005 Computer Security and Infrastructure Bill, 2005 Electronic Provision
Bill and Cybercrime 2011 Bill” (Okunoye et al., 2018), which was passed into law in 2015 as
Cybercrime Act (2015) by the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan regime.
Nigeria Communications Commission – a Nigeria’s Internet Control establishment maintains order by enforcing the mobile communication technology companies to block contents that are of a breach to national security. As a result of this, 21 websites were blocked in 2017 (Ibid.). Aside from Internet censorship, journalists and activists are arrested continuously in Nigeria as a result of their online posts with anti-government/military discourse. Recent arrests include; Samuel Ogundipe of PREMIUM TIMES who was arrested on Aug. 14, 2018, as a result of his refusal to disclose his source in an article he published. On
166 Jun. 4, 2019, Kofi Bartel was arrested for “filming police brutality” (Amnesty International,
2019). On Sept. 16, 2019, Mary Ekere was assaulted for taking images of state official’s
brutality (Ibid.). In 2019, Omoyele Sowore of Sahara Reporters was arrested as a result of his
anti-governmental online posts, which was resisted by ordinary Nigerian citizens (Salako,
2019). Arrests, assaults and detention of journalists and media activists were resisted by
Amnesty International (2019) by writing to the Nigerian state authorities to allow journalists
and media activists perform their everyday activities as they deem fit. Index-censorship’s head
of Advocacy – Joy Hyvarinen resisted the arrest of Omoyele Sowore (Index Censorship, 2019).
Chapter three fulfilled the objective of exploring the socio-political changes that led to recent
technological innovations in the surveillance and criminalisation of dissenting public discourse
on social media.
Chapter four presented the methodology utilised in answering the research question of
the thesis. Faircloughian Critical Discourse Analysis was employed in investigating corpus
policy documents and interview of ten human rights activists in Nigeria. The nuances of
Critical Discourse Analysis were presented in the chapter. Van Dijk (1995) suggests that in analysing text with CDA, the study must begin with textual analysis. Fairclough (1996) asserts that the nature of social power and power abuse are to be examined and in particular, the way dominance is expressed or enacted in text and talk. Wodak (2002) is of the opinion that CDA is the relationship between language and power. Van Dijk (1993) asserts that CDA is not primarily interested in contributing to a particular school, discipline or theory, but is interested in proffering solutions to pressing problems through discourse analysis. The method chosen in the analysis of the policy documents is Fairclough (2008, p10) steps to conducting CDA, such as;
1) Analyse dialectic relations between semiosis and other social elements; between discourse and other elements of social practices; between texts and other elements of events.
167 2) Select texts and focus on categories for their analysis in light of and appropriate to the constitution of the object of the research. 3) Carry out analysis of texts, both interdiscursive analysis, and linguistic/semiotic analysis.
The chapter concludes by presenting the framework for Faircloughian CDA, which is a transdisciplinary cultural, political economy discourse which stems from three disciplines;
Critical Discourse Analysis, political economy and a theory of the state (Fairclough, 2008, p7).
Policy Documents in Nigeria representing state censorship was analysed in Chapter
Five. They include; Frivolous Petitions Prohibitions Bill (2015), Cybercrime Act (2015), NGO
Regulatory Bill (2017), Hate Speech Bill (2017) and Protection from Internet Falsehoods and
Manipulation Bill (2019). Themes derived from the policy documents investigated include;
Sedition, Political control and Ideology, which reveals the continuous efforts made by the state
to establish and maintain order on civic spaces through proposals and enactment of legislation
for restrictions of freedom of speech. Analysed events which supported the analysis of policy
document, as required by the steps taken in the study of Faircloughian CDA is the disparity in
the reporting style of Sahara Reporters article (SaharaReporters, Nov. 30, 2019), and Irish
Times article (Hayden, Dec. 12, 2019). The articles conveyed different information on the
support of the Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill (2019) supported by
the first lady of Nigeria (Aisha Buhari). While the Sahara Reporters article reported the news
story to its audience by suggesting to its readers that the news organisation were bias in the
presentation of the news story as a result of stating that Aisha Buhari supports the control
mechanisms on civic spaces by the state in comparison to China’s authoritarian model of
governance.
However, the Irish Times article went above and beyond in reporting the support of the
Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulations Bill (2019) by the first lady of Nigeria.
They presented evidence of resistance from human rights defenders in the article. Also, they
revealed repression of human right activists by Nigerian state authorities, which led to the
168 activist relocating abroad to secure foreign protection. Chapter five contributed to knowledge
by developing Yusuf (2008, p27) argument that there is “a need to engage with the implications
of colonisation, as it will shape and condition transitional justice processes”. Similarly, the
chapter contributed to knowledge by revealing Greenleaf (2019) notion of the need for Nigeria
to have a Data Protection Act that is free from state interference. Chapter five fulfilled the
objective of considering the impact of social media legislation on protest groups by revealing
resistance of bills depicting state censorship by Nigeria human rights organisations
Chapter six presented the analysis of human rights activists which utilised snowball
sampling research technique in recruiting respondents for the study. Themes derived from the
interview manuscript include; Reasons for mobilisation. The sub-themes that fell under this
category are; state censorship, unpopular policies, regulations, neglect of statutory duties and violence. The second theme derived from the interview manuscripts is Resistance
Environments. Sub-themes that fell under this category are Physical and Online Environment.
The third theme derived from the interview manuscript is Impact of Protests. Policing/coercion and surveillance are sub-themes that fell under this category. Chapter six fulfilled the objective of examining the weaknesses of social media regulations and paucity of data protection for
Nigeria citizens through data derived from respondents.
Themes/sub-themes derived from the interview manuscript suggest restrictions on civic
spaces by state actors. This goes further to support the assertions by Sogge (2019), where he
states that shrinking of civic spaces is not only caused by domestic repressions, but also
international forces contribute to the shaping of civil society. Private interests crowd political
spaces and are protected by the states, and countermeasures should be found within such
powerful interests. Sogge (2019) assertions informed the chapter to contribute to knowledge
by filling a gap in Spivak et al. (2006) emphasising on “the need for transitional justice theory
and praxis to engage with the colonial legacy in post-colonial societies”.
169 In answering the central research question; Is the lack of clearly defined data protection laws
in Nigeria contributing to restrictions on freedom of speech and the problems associated with
the decolonisation of the Nigeria polity? The thesis answers this question by arguing that the
lack of clearly defined data protection law in Nigeria contributes to regulations for freedom of
speech. Still, the existence of data protection and privacy laws in the Nigerian society will not
prevent state/non-state monitoring (Lin, 2018). We resulted in this conclusion by critically
analysing the literature, empirical data of corpus policy documents in Nigeria, and semi- structured interviews of human rights activists in Nigeria presented in Chapters Two, five and six. The research methodology adopted in analysing the primary data was a qualitative method using Fairclough’s (2008; 2013) dialectical-relational approach exemplified in Chapter four of this study.
This thesis developed Fairclough’s (2008; 2013) model on identifying social wrongs and suggested solutions to right social wrongs. A combination of state power theory, critical discourse analysis and political economy (Ibhawoh, 2002; Spivak et al., 2006, Yusuf, 2018,
Jessop, 2017) were utilised as theoretical frameworks in the development of Fairclough’s
(2008; 2013) model through narratives of calls for social transformation of the Nigeria justice system, freedom of speech and expression in Nigeria.
7.1 LIMITATION OF STUDY
Limitations of this thesis include the small number of participants interviewed in the data gathering process. The study is a political discourse, and some activists declined from taking part in my research. Similarly, due to resource and time constraints, the researcher was not able to carry out survey analysis on ordinary users of social media platforms in Nigeria, to determine their perceptions of whether or not lack of clearly defined data protection legislation in Nigeria contributes to regulations for freedom of speech.
7.2 FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATION
170 Findings from the policy documents investigated, literature and the interview analysis
suggest that state actors are censoring Nigeria’s digital sphere to identify possible threats to
national security since the “politics of identity plays out in public discourse” (Hanska et al.,
2020). The Nigeria state authorities establish and maintain order on civic spaces by employing
non-state actors, such as Wise Intelligence surveillance technology (Privacy International,
2014) to monitor dissidents of state censorship. Similarly, findings suggest that Nigeria polity operates on colonial legacies (Ibhawoh, 2002; Yusuf, 2018). Previous administrations have engaged with processes to decolonise the British colonial justice system which failed as a result of “nepotism and gatekeeping” (Yusuf, 2018, p14). For example, the Obasanjo regime initiated the “Oputa panel” to investigate the violation of human rights (Yusuf, 2018, p23), and presented its report in June 2003. The report is unpublished because “the panel had rather shaky legal foundations. The Tribunal of Inquiry Act, under which it was established, was a legacy of colonialism principally designed for specialised inquiries” (Ibid.). Furthermore, the
Intercept – an online news organisation that reveals intelligence reports on various states surveillance mechanisms, have no information on Nigeria’s Wise Intelligence Surveillance
Technology. This thesis calls on the Intercept to reveal Nigeria’s Wise Intelligence Technology modes of operations. Similarly, Nigeria citizens are aware of digital surveillance through recent arrests of human rights activists such as; Omoyele Sowore, Olawale Bakare and Agba Jalingo.
This thesis suggests that to create countermeasures of state repression on civic spaces, as asserted by Sogge (2019), the Nigeria state authorities should engage in social transformation programs to decolonise the British colonial justice system in Nigeria and eliminate the violation of human rights. Similarly, media activists and journalists could avoid mediation on commercial websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on, and utilise non-commercial web platforms such as; Tactical Tech Collectives, Electronic Frontier
Surveillance Self Defence, Riseup.net, Autistici, and Sindominio (Dencik et al., 2016). From
171 the responses of interviewees, it is evidenced that the lack of clearly defined data protection law in Nigeria contributes to regulations for freedom of speech.
The thesis reiterates that citizens online communication are regulated by state and non- state power, as the Nigeria state authorities establish policy documents to restrict freedom of speech on civic spaces, and maintains order by identifying threats to national security through the powers of Wise Intelligence surveillance technology (Privacy International, 2014). More research into the modes of operations of Wise Intelligence surveillance technology is needed.
Similarly, comprehensive research through survey analysis of ordinary social media users is recommended to enhance the findings.
172 APPENDIX 1
INFORMED CONSENT FORM
I volunteer to participate in a research project conducted by PhD student (Ere Amapamoere
Jennifer) from De Montfort University United Kingdom. I understand that the project is designed to gather information about academic work of faculty on campus. I will be one of approximately 30 people being interviewed for this research.
1. My participation in this project is voluntary. I understand that I will not be paid for my participation. I may withdraw and discontinue participation at any time without penalty. If I decline to participate or withdraw from the study, no third party will be informed of this decision.
2. I understand that most interviewees will find the discussion interesting and thought- provoking. If, however, I feel uncomfortable in any way during the interview session, I have the right to decline to answer any question or to end the interview.
3. Participation involves being interviewed by Ere Amapamoere Jennifer from DE
MONTFORT UNIVERSITY. The interview will last approximately 30-45 minutes. Notes will be written during the interview. An audio tape of the interview and subsequent dialogue will be made. If I do not wish my remarks to be recorded, I understand that I will not be able to participate in the study.
4. I understand that the researcher will not identify me by name in any reports using information obtained from this interview, and that my confidentiality as a participant in this study will remain secure. Subsequent uses of records and data will be subject to standard data use policies which protect the anonymity of individuals and institutions.
5. Faculty and administrators from my campus will neither be present at the interview nor have access to raw notes or transcripts. This precaution will prevent my individual comments from having any negative repercussions.
173 6. I have read and understand the explanation provided to me. I have had all my questions answered to my satisfaction, and I voluntarily agree to participate in this study.
7. I have been given a copy of this consent form.
______
My Signature Date
______
Ere, Amapamoere Jennifer Signature of the Investigator
For further information, please contact:
[Prof. Stuart Price [email protected]]
[Dr Ben Harbisher [email protected]
174 APPENDIX 2
PARTICIPANT INFORMATION SHEET
AN INVESTIGATION INTO DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN
NIGERIA: A STUDY OF NEW MEDIA REGULATIONS
Dear Participant,
I would like to ask you to participate in the data collection for a PhD research on Digital
Surveillance and Social Justice in Nigeria: A study of New Media Regulations conducted by
Ere, Amapamoere Jennifer from the Media Discourse Centre De Montfort University.
Participation in this study is entirely voluntary. It will involve a semi-structured interview process, and I will provide you with two initial questions before the scheduled Interview session. I will contact you initially by email. The information you provide, together with your identity, will be kept confidential. This also means that your name or any other personal identifying information will not appear in any publications resulting from this study.
If you wish, you may decide not to answer particular questions. You may also choose to withdraw from this study at any time by advising the researcher or using the contact detail at the end of this document. All data will be anonymised, making it impossible to trace back to the source. If you notify us of your withdrawal, all the data you have provided will be destroyed.
I may ask for clarification of specific issues raised in the interview session sometime after it has taken place, but this does not mean you will be obliged to participate further if you do not want to do so.
The information gained from this interview will only be used for the above objectives and will not be used for any other purpose.
175 Although the study findings may be published in international conferences and journals, only
the researcher will have access to the data itself. There are no known or anticipated risks to you
as a participant in this study.
If you have any questions regarding this study or would like additional information, please ask
the researcher before, during, or after given consent.
Yours sincerely,
Ere, Amapamoere Jennifer
PhD Student
Media Discourse Centre
De Montfort University
The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK
Tel.: + 44 (0) 7844700121 E-mail: [email protected]
Supervisors:
Dr Ben Harbisher ([email protected])
Professor Stuart Price ([email protected])
176 APPENDIX 3
GRAPH: LIST OF DOCUMENTS ANALYSED AND URL ADDRESSES
DOCU URL ADDRESS STA LANG PUBLI MENT TUS UAGE SHED DATE Frivolo https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id Polic English 2015 us =2713169 y Petition Docu s ment Prohibit ions Bill Cybercr https://cert.gov.ng/ngcert/resources/CyberCrime__P Polic English 2015 ime Act rohibition_Prevention_etc__Act__2015.pdf y Docu ment NGO http://www.thescoopng.com/wp- Polic English 2017 Regulat content/uploads/2017/09/NGO-Bill-Copy.pdf y ory Bill Docu ment Hate https://www.africanews.com/2019/11/13/nigerians- Polic English 2017 Speech fume-as-senate-considers-hate-speech-internet- y Bill falsehood-laws// Docu ment Protecti https://www.nassnig.org/documents/billdownload/1 Polic English 2019 on from 0965.pdf y Internet Docu Falseho ment ods and Manipu lation Bill Sahara http://saharareporters.com/2019/11/30/buharis-wife- News English Nov. Reporte backs-hate-speech-bill-says-nigerian-government- paper 30, rs needs-control-china articl 2019 e The https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/africa/niger News English Dec. 2, Irish ian-social-media-bill-under-fire-as-first-lady- paper 2019 Times suggests-emulating-china-1.4102287 articl e
177 APPENDIX 4
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW SESSION WITH JUSTICE 1
Question 1: What social media platforms do you engage with?
Interviewee: I use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
Question 2: Do you engage with non-commercial social media platforms such as Sindominio,
Autistici and Riseup.net?
Interviewee: No, I do not engage with such platforms.
Question 3: Can you recount on occurrences in Nigeria that leads to mobilisation for protest activities?
Interviewee: Firstly, the Buhari regime in 2015 utilised the powers of propaganda to get into power. However, the opposition party PDP is using same propaganda on social media to gain victory in the 2019 polls, and the state is resisting it by enacting laws and proposing regulations against hate speech and fake news on social media platforms. Secondly, there is totalitarianism in every sector in Nigeria.
Question 4: You mentioned totalitarianism in your previous response, can you throw more light on this?
Interviewee: Yes, the whole Government institutions in Nigeria are controlled by the Executive
Government. The local institutions do not have the power to control their resources, which often leads to strikes, rallies and protests.
Question 5: You mentioned protests in your previous response, how do you mobilise for protest activities?
Interviewee: Presently, mobilisation is very easy because of the emergence of social media platforms. Millions of members are mobilised via social media, especially student members.
178 By the time you reach out to the student union president and speakers/leaders of various institutions, you have realised about 100 buses are filled with protesters.
Question 6: How does your organisation derive funding for mobilisation?
Interviewee: The leaders sponsor the process. By the time we get the information to mobilise,
I can provide 3 to 5 buses. These days people volunteer themselves to join protests. For instance, the mobilisation of the Chibok girls' protests was achieved by voluntary contribution from ordinary citizens. Mobilisation does not entail buying and selling just as politicians do.
Question 7: From your previous response, I can understand that you do not face any challenges in mobilising for protest activities, what environments do you carry out your protests?
Interviewee: Presently, it is a combination of physical and social media. We utilise social media effectively, especially for conferences. Social media is very efficient and useful, but it also poses some adverse effects. Some individuals use it to infringe on people's rights. I will not conform to criminality because I am engaging with social media.
Question 8: In your previous comment, you mentioned that social media has a negative implication on users. To this note, have you or your members being arrested as a result of your social media mobilisations?
Interviewee: Yes, our protest activities attract arrests by the state authorities. As an activist, whenever I write on social media, I am being monitored. My team members have been arrested and incarcerated severally. However, we get arrested more as a result of physical mobilisations than social media mobilisations.
Question 9: Does your information gets leaked when you mobilise for protest activities?
Interviewee: Sometimes, it gets leaked as a result of carelessness. Some members may send text messages that can get to security agents. They can also reveal some vital information to security spies that may disguise themselves as members of our organisation.
Question 10: Do your social media mobilisations attract state and non-state surveillance actors?
179 Interviewee: It attracts surveillance from the state authorities. For example, there was a rape incident that occurred in Bayelsa State. The Police did not handle the investigation properly, so I decided to protest against the ill-mannered investigations on Facebook. I put a caption that
I should be arrested if it was false information. The Police commissioner invited me. However,
I was not afraid because I had carried out proper investigations and had my facts. When the
police commissioner invited me, he also invited the SARS and SERIOUS CRIME. Within the
SARS office, there is the department of SERIOUS CRIME and ANTI-CULTISM. I told the
commissioner for Police that the rapist escaped from SARS. It was a long story. While
interviewed by the Police commissioner, he insisted that my narration of the incident was different from what his men reported. I told him I had the facts, and I quickly put a call to our barrister who called the rape victim. She was not afraid and reported to the station in five minutes. She presented her doctor's report and her statements in 8 divisions. She narrated the full story on how the rapist was arrested and escaped from the SARS office. The Police commissioner was surprised. He put up on Adhoc committee. He insisted that my lawyer, our organisation's lawyer, the head of conflict resolution team headed by a woman should investigate the trueness of the statement made by the rape victim in the eight divisions where she initially reported the incident. They examined the rape incident, and the rapist happened to
be a state officer. He was rearrested alongside the Police officers he bribed in the eight divisions
to escape from Police custody.
Question 11: Does surveillance limit your freedom of speech while communicating on social
media platforms?
Interviewee: No, it does not. Excuse me; you must be schooled. You must be educated; you must know what you are doing. As an activist, I am fearless.
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW SESSION WITH JUSTICE 2
Question 1: What social media platforms do you engage with?
180 Interviewee: I engage with Facebook Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Question 2: Do you engage with non-commercial social media platforms like Riseup.net,
Sindominio and Autistici?
Interviewee: No, I am not familiar with such platforms.
Question 3: Can you recount on occurrences in Nigeria that leads to mobilisation for protest activities?
Interviewee: I think as a Nigerian, the constitution for rights are for me to protest if there is any policy that is against the goodwill of ordinary citizens. I will protest in a way that will not go against Government set rules. Since I joined human rights activism 20 years ago, I have been cautious. The Government is a constituted authority. I just have to be very careful in order not to jeopardise the policies and agenda of the Government. I am a Christian, and the Bible said that we should submit ourselves to the constituted authority. I think that has been my guide and principles when protesting against Government policies.
Question 4: How do you mobilise people for your protest activities?
Interviewee: Mobilisation for protest is not difficult. We have many members comprising of market women, students and transport workers. If they feel you are fighting for a genuine and just cause, they volunteer to join the protest.
Question 5: From your response above, mobilisation seems to be easy for you and your organisation. Have you or your members been arrested as a result of your protest activities?
Interviewee: Yes, it has. Many members both living, and dead have been arrested and incarcerated, but it was more in the military regimes than in the democratic administrations.
Question 6: What leads to arrest of your members?
Interviewee: Well, I cannot answer that one. If we have a protest that we want to engage with, we have to plan. Even though we try as much as possible to caution ourselves, some people
181 monitor our activities and whatever thing we say in public. Our protests are to advice
Government, and to inform the state authorities that we are partners in moving Nigeria forward.
Question 7: You made mention that people monitor your activities, how does this happen?
Interviewee: Protests on social media is just like adding voice to public opinion. When the
Government introduces policies, we add our view to the policies. The state authorities monitor our comments.
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW SESSION WITH JUSTICE 3
Question 1: What social media platforms do you engage with?
Interviewee: Twitter and Facebook.
Question 2: Do you engage with non-commercial social media platforms such as Riseup.net,
Autistici and Sindominio?
Interviewee: No, I do not. I am not even aware of such platforms.
Question 3: Can you recount on occurrences in Nigeria that leads to mobilisation for protest activities?
Interviewee: Firstly, increment in fuel prices result in mobilisation for protests. Petrol is the only thing the ordinary citizens benefit from the Government. It provides the opportunity for people to protest for other things such as electricity, inadequate health facilities, and so on.
Secondly, whenever there is an increase in business tax, it usually attracts protests. Thirdly, when there is insufficient funding for educational institutions, it leads to protest by the educational board ASUU and students of state-owned higher institutions. Fourthly, protests occur as a result of corruption and electoral reforms.
Question 4: Which environments do your carry out protest activities?
Interviewee: Although we utilise social media platforms in organising protests, we are more physical. There was a time we held a protest surrounding the high rates of unemployment in
Nigeria. We expected people would be more involved physically. To our greatest surprise, the
182 response was low in comparison to the top response from social media. We try as much as
possible to organise through social media. However, physical mobilisation is more effective.
People engage with social media from the comfort of their homes. Social media has its
advantage, but it has to be merged with physical mobilisation to yield productive results.
Question 5: Have your protest activities attracted arrests?
Interviewee: It is very typical in Nigeria for your protest activities to attract arrests. I have been
arrested in Port Harcourt and Lagos. Most of my members have been arrested as well.
Question 6: Does our information gets leaked when organising for protest activities?
Interviewee: We organise meetings. We are not afraid of Police obstructing the protests. If we
send out information for a protest, everybody doesn't need to attend. We do not care if our
information gets leaked. There was a Police informant that was active on one of our campaigns.
We have had members of the DSS attend our meetings.
Question 7: How do you derive funding for mobilisation?
Interviewee: We are funded by member organisations such as Trade unions, ASUU members
and the coalition of Joint Action Force. People volunteer to fight for a just cause.
Question 8: Do state and non-state surveillance actors monitor your activities?
Interviewee: Yes, it does. However, they will not be doing their job if they don't do that. For
instance, we do not inform the DSS of our protests. They become aware of the protest ether
through social media, or otherwise. We do not bother about state/non-state surveillance actors.
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW SESSION WITH JUSTICE 4
Question 1: What social media platforms do you engage with?
Interviewee: I use Instagram and WhatsApp.
Question 2: Do you engage with non-commercial social media platforms such as Autistici,
Riseup.net and Sindominio.
Interviewee: No, I do not engage with such platforms.
183 Question 4: You made mention that you protested in major cities in Nigeria, how did you mobilise protesters?
Interviewee: We mobilised through our National convention with representatives from the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. The National secretary passes the information of a specific protest to the various regions. The messages are passed on to the Local Government Areas where mobilisation takes place in grassroots levels. We also involve the traditional and social media to disseminate the news of our protests. However, if we are protesting against an anti- democratic policy, we do not inform or involve the media before protesting takes place.
Question 5: How does your organisation derive funding?
Interviewee: It is a membership organisation, and dues are levied on members. We have over
500,000 members in the country, which cuts across workers, traders, women, students, professionals and so on. The dues we realise from our members are utilised for our activities.
We also have non-members that contribute to our movement in disguise. Similarly, organisations like Heart Foundation, GSID, NDP, UNDP, European Union, Canadian
Liberation, National Endorsement for Democracy contribute to our movement. Our funds are spent on court proceedings on human rights violation, organisation of workshops with the training of members following the International Human Rights Commission. We also carry out major campaigns on Radio Nigeria, NTA, Channels Television and AIT. We present human right issues emphasising on the need for the state to desist form violation of the rights of citizens of Nigeria.
Question 6: Where do you carry out your events?
Interviewee: It depends on where the violation occurs. If the protest is a national protest, we organise the event in Lagos. Lagos is the centre of the democratic province in Nigeria since independence. We carry out placards on the road, which attracts people on road traffic. It is challenging to organise a protest in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja because the politicians
184 have corrupted the minds of citizens living in Abuja. If you do not offer money to citizens, they
will not join the protest. In such instances, we mobilise our members in the north-east region
to join the protest—for example, members in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.
Question 7: From your previous response, you seem to mobilise more on physical
environments. Do you organise protests on social media?
Interviewee: We have online media like Premium Times and Sahara Reporters. They are part
of our team. We engage them in the publishing of our activities. We also utilise Instagram
platforms to create public awareness of our protest activities.
Question 8: Have you or your members been arrested as a result of your protest activities?
Interviewee: Our Executive Director was eliminated on his way from Maiduguri to Abuja in
2005 after our protests. We lost members during the military regimes. I was detained more than
17 times. When Abacha was in power, I was arrested alongside the National secretary in 1999.
He was almost blinded. It was when Abacha asked ordered I should be brought to Abuja that we were released. Our offices have been raided—our properties scattered by security agents.
In fact, in 2019, our office was filled up with security agents, and I was taken away and detained to zonal command. We went to court and received a court order against the Police. The court charged the Police 25million Nigerian naira for infringement of rights. I was to be paid 200,000
Nigerian naira for unlawful detaining without due legal process. The Police were also asked to return all our belongings that were destroyed. Up to date, the court order has not been implemented. FF has been detained severally. GF was detained until he died in the Police cell.
P. O of the University of Lagos was arrested severally. Dr. JB, has been arrested and detained
amongst others. However, these forms of coercion appeared more in the military regimes than
in the democratic administrations.
Question 9: How do the security agents find out about your activities? Did your information
get leaked during organising protests in the military regimes?
185 Interviewee: Sometimes, our information gets leaked during the military dictatorship. The DSS used to be the State Security Service. They were everywhere; they wore plain clothes. They can join the organisation as a member, and claim they are student activists. Some of them were even elected into executive positions. We later found out they were working for the state.
Sometimes when we plan to organise activities, the state arrests us in our homes. We had a program in Jos in 1996, we checked into a hotel in Jos as a religious organisation. Before we arrived at the hotel accommodation, the SSS was already checked into the same hotel. The
Abacha regime gave orders that no Civil Liberty Organisation should be allowed to check into any hotel in Nigeria to organise events. For us to host an event in a hotel, we had to disguise as a religious organisation. Unfortunately for us, the SSS got to find out about our plight. They were at the venue before our arrival. Our National officer was immediately arrested, and the event was disorganised.
Question 10: When carrying out protests on social media, does it attract state and non-state surveillance actors?
Interviewee: Yes, it does. I received lots of calls from people I do not know after organising events on social media. People send me text messages condemning our actions which I know are from members of state authorities. Some of them are leaders of the APC and members of the senate. AO and some cohorts are creating confusion that may infringe on the rights of citizens. We have written International bodies such as Canada, UK, US and European Union.
We have also informed them about how they are trying to disrupt the democratic process. O is inciting inaccurate statements. We have already written embassies asking them to investigate the present Government on the ways in which they are violating the rights of citizens. Some people who are pro APC are condemning us that we are working for the PDP. However, the
PDP had been in power for 16 years, and we were also carrying out protests then. I mentioned the anti-fuel protests we carried out in 2005 under the PDP led democratic regime. They paid
186 huge amounts of money to independent markets. We protested and called for refining of fuel in Nigeria. We did not see a reason why and the Government would refine oil outside Nigeria.
We also televised the protests globally. We are not supporting any Government. We do not support any Government that comes into power and works against the interest of the people.
In organising digitally, we invite the media to cover our events. We utilise social media platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp to disseminate our activities to a large heterogeneous audience.
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW SESSION WITH JUSTICE 5
Question 1: What social media platforms do you engage with?
Interviewee: I use Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.
Question 2: Do you engage with non-commercial social media platforms such as Autistici,
Riseup.net and Sindominio?
Interviewee: No, I do not.
Question 3: Can you recount on occurrences in Nigeria that leads to mobilisation for protest activities?
Interviewee: Usually, what triggers protests are policies of Government that is against the interest of the citizens. For example, the increment of fuel price, an increase of school fees,
Government policies that are against the benefit of the citizens trigger protest activities.
Question 4: How do you mobilise for protest activities?
Interviewee: It depends on the category of people involved. If it is student movement on campus, we mobilise through the student union and the core congresses. They fix a date for the action, and the student leaders move around to pass the message for the congress. They print out leaflets which are used to inform the student populace. If it is a labour movement, the TVC or NLC embark on a strike. They just send directives to the different hierarchies of the organisations. They utilise traditional and social media. Social media mobilisation is an
187 important tool that organisers of movements in Nigeria often use to get the populace to join whatever actions they seem to carry out. They do this by resisting a policy of a Government or take a stand on a negative occurrence.
Question 5: From your response, you mentioned you utilise physical and social media for your mobilisations. Can you throw more light on this?
Interviewee: It depends on the period we are looking at. In the first half of the post-military rule from 1999 to 2010, protest actions and mobilisations took place on physical environments.
They include streets, on campuses, highways, workplaces, and so on. However, 2012 changed the nature of protest in Nigeria. Social media aided in mobilising citizens for protest. For instance, to sustain the struggle, we protested on physical environments in the morning. In the evening, we utilised social media to create public awareness of the protest to a global audience.
Social media is a platform for mobilisation. We have witnessed situations where social media has been utilised to expose specific Government policies that are detrimental to ordinary citizens.
Question 6: How does your organisation derive funding for mobilisation?
Interviewee: I am speaking strictly for us—those of us who are actors in the struggle. We appeal to people directly. Those who we feel will be affected by the issue we are struggling for. We ask them to contribute little amounts and their small contributions assist in providing the tools for the activities. Over the years, the course has been that a messiah will come and fund. We have realised that when this happens, it is always for an agenda. We find a way to get funding through our members that we protest for. Currently, we are protesting against the illegitimate bills on electricity that ordinary citizens cannot afford. We do not need millions. What we need is the hearts of the people, that they can engage in the struggle to foster change.
Question 7: Have you or your members been arrested as a result of your protest activities?
188 Interviewee: We have had arrests, detention and false charges. Many of our student comrades
have been suspended and expelled from school. Several student activists have been suspended
and dismissed as a result of their social media posts. This proves that many educational
institutions in Nigeria are funding the monitoring of social media platforms.
Question 8: Does your information gets leaked when organising your events?
Interviewee: We have always prioritised the need to carry out the actions. Without it, we can't
make social changes. Leaks do occur in terms of the Police sending spy agents to attend our
meeting. People get arrested as a result of this. A few years ago, we were arrested. When we
got to the Police station, we found out that the person who reported us to the Police was a spy
of the Police who previously attended our meetings. In Nigeria, when you are arrested, you are
beaten. This particular agent was among those arrested but was not hit. We asked him why he
was not tortured. We later realised that he was a top member of the state security agency. We
found out that he even played a significant role to break protocol in our meetings which led to
our arrests.
Question 9: Does your social media mobilisation attract state and non-state surveillance actors?
Interviewee: We have had members of our student activists invited to panels, suspended and
expelled. They were arrested because the authorities monitored their social media posts, which
shows the danger that lies with the use of social media. Authorities and Governments now have
mechanisms in monitoring social media. In other words, many leading activists in Nigeria will
have their phones, or social media activities tracked regularly. We are against state restriction
of social media. We are of the opinion that social media should be free from state and non-state interference. However, we have not yet had a high-profile arrest on account of social media activists. Intelligent agencies are monitoring social media to arrest activists when they deem fit. This shows that Nigeria's democracy ought to be growing, but what we are seeing is the growth of totalitarianism in every sector.
189 TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW SESSION WITH JUSTICE 6
Question 1: What social media platforms do you engage with?
Interviewee: I use Facebook and Twitter.
Question 2: Do you engage with non-commercial social media platforms such as Autistici,
Sindominio and Riseup.net?
Interviewee: No, I do not engage with them.
Question 3: Can you recount on occurrences in Nigeria that leads to mobilisation for protest
activities?
Interviewee: Lack of adequate social amenities, estimated bills from electricity company and
workers protest for an increase in the minimum wage.
Question 4: How does your organisation mobilise for protest activities?
Interviewee: We mobilise through social media, circulation of fliers, door to door
advertisement and text messages. When dealing with community issues, street sensitisation is
more effective.
Question 5: Which environments do you carry out protest activities?
Interviewee: It depends. If it is Government policies, we create awareness on social media. For
community issues, we mobilise physically by the distribution of fliers.
Question 6: Have you or your members been arrested as a result of your mobilisations?
Interviewee: We get picked up by security agents. The Police and DSS try to stop the protests before it takes place. They arrest when you refuse to demobilise. They try to get the leaders arrested. In some cases, they charge to court.
Question 7: Does your information get leaked?
Interviewee: It gets leaked. The way the DSS operates, they have offices in every Local
Government Area. They usually have organisations that work for them, and sometimes they
190 get information of your activities before it takes place. They have informants as members of our organisations that release information to them.
Question 8: Does your social media mobilisation attract state and non-state surveillance actors?
Interviewee: Social media in Nigeria is not as restricted as China. This year, the Government allocated 2.2billion Nigerian naira to acquire security machinery to curtail the spread of false information on social media. I do not know if they have started that. I know they cannot do that without getting Facebook, Google and WhatsApp to collaborate with them. Sometimes when you mobilise on social media, the DSS tries to invite you for questioning and try to arrest you.
However, it is not widespread at the moment, as it is in China. I think their strategy is to use a security protocol to curtail it. You and I know the primary intent is to stop views that are not in the interest of the state.
Question 9: Does this form of monitoring lead to limiting of freedom of speech on digital spaces?
Interviewee: Yes, it limits, because you do not want to put yourself in danger. One has to be very careful with what you share. We share factual information and mobilise around it.
Although that doesn't determine whether or not we will be arrested or victimised. in pursuing social justice, we sustain information. Often when the DSS arrests, they do not charge to court.
Some of our activists have been detained in Police cells over a year.
Question 10: How does you or your organisation get funding?
Interviewee: We derive funding from subscriptions from members. It is a member-based organisation. We get solidarities from labour organisations as well.
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW SESSION WITH JUSTICE 7
Question 1: What social media platforms do you engage with?
Interviewee: Facebook and WhatsApp.
191 Question 2: Do you engage with social media platforms such as Sindominio, Autistici and
Riseup.net.
Interviewee: No, I do not know about such platforms.
Question 3: Can you recount on occurrences in Nigeria that leads to mobilisation for protest
activities?
Interviewee: There are different account of political situations that will lead to mobilisation of
protests. Power failure in Nigeria is a major issue that has led to series of mobilisations, and I
have been involved in the protests. The company that regulates power makes millions of profits
in providing darkness—secondly, minimum wage issue. Thirdly, the deterioration of health
sector leads to protests. The primary issue while people are mobilising is to exercise their
legitimate rights as citizens when they are disenfranchised.
Question 4: How is mobilisation carried out?
Interviewee: Community, press statements, conference leaflet sharing, rallies, demonstration
for peaceful mobilisation.
Question 5: Which environment do you carry out protest activities?
Interviewee: We carry out our activities on social media and physical mobilisations. We
mobilise more physically because you can convince people the more face to face. The Arab
Spring revolution in Tunisia through Facebook increased social media mobilisation, but
physical mobilisation makes protest more effective.
Question 6: Have you or your members been arrested as a result of protest activities?
Interviewee: The Government tries to suppress our protests and often arrests the leaders.
Question 7: Does your information get leaked?
Interviewee: Sometimes, spies attend meetings. However, the leakage of information does not stop the protest from occurring.
Question 8: Does your social media mobilisation attract state and non-state surveillance actors?
192 Interviewee: Yes, it does. In social media mobilisation, you cannot ascertain who follows your thread. Campaigners do not release vital information on social media. We do not publish all information on social media. We are very meticulous.
Question 9: Does the presence of surveillance actors on virtual environments limit your freedom of speech?
Interviewee: No, it cannot. The state cannot disenfranchise the citizens not to express their feelings. The constitution supersedes any law. The company who bought the power industry from the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan regime paid 400 billion dollars to acquire it. However, they are collaborating with the Police to force citizens to pay outrageous bills on electricity. We have carried out sensitisation in the community to create awareness on a peaceful protest to resist state interference and to enforce change in the issue of outrageous electricity bills. The politicians we have in Nigeria earn ten times the salaries of a civil servant. The security allowance of a senator can comfortably pay 230,000 workers the amount of 65,000 Nigerian naira. Increasing the minimum wage to N65,000 will not affect the economy. Nigeria has what it takes to increase the minimum wage, yet they arrest workers who embark on peaceful protests in the quest of increase of minimum wage of civil servants. S40 of the Nigerian Constitution
(1999) states that people have the right to express their views. No law can stop protests.
Question 10: How does your organisation get funding?
Interviewee: We rely on our members for monthly subscriptions. We also generate funds through appeal forms. We organise meetings and raise targeted funds from the meetings. We cannot fight a capitalist Government by asking them to release funds for our movement.
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW SESSION WITH JUSTICE 8
Question 1: What social media platforms do you engage with?
Interviewee: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
193 Question 2: Do you engage with non-commercial platforms such as Riseup.net, Sindominio and Autistici?
Interviewee: No, I am not familiar with such platforms.
Question 3: Can you recount on occurrences in Nigeria that leads to mobilisation for protest activities?
Interviewee: It depends. Increase in fuel price on January 1, 2012, was spontaneous. We had anticipated that the Government was going to increase fuel prices. There is inefficiency in
Government. The only way Government make up from funds they steal is to increase the pump price of fuel. People got angry and joined in the protests. We did not mobilise people. They mobilised themselves. We were leaders of the action. Secondly, human trafficking takes place in Nigeria, which we protest against. Thirdly, insufficient funding for educational institutions leads to ASUU strikes, and we organise citizens to protest for the welfare of state-owned educational institutions in Nigeria. We utilise the media to inform the public of the real scenario from our perspective. The Government was not happy about this. The media helped us in conveying the fact of the irregularities in Government policies to the public. We also intervened in the welfare of the staff of Government hospitals.
Question 4: Which environments do you carry out protests?
Interviewee: It is primarily physical. Social media is essential, but physical environments are more important. Similarly, the Government engage with mainstream media more because they believe in propaganda. They tend to be embarrassed when we showcase our action on physical and mainstream media.
Question 5: Have your protest attracted arrests from the state authorities?
Interviewee: Yes, it has. The January 1, 2012 action was nationwide. We conducted a memorial of the battle a year later, which led to the arrest of our members by state authorities. AF son and wife were teargassed. Many of our people were talking to police custody. I was arranging
194 musical equipment for the Gani square, the Police intervened and disorganised all the equipment. Our barristers intervened and released our members and equipment. In most cases, the Police accompany us to ensure there is law and order. If there is no contrary instruction from politicians, they do not assault protesters.
Question 6: Does your information get leaked?
Interviewee: We do not operate in secret. In the ASUU crisis, we were invited by the Lagos
State Police command. We were questioned about our activities and was asked to stop mobilisation for the protest. We refused. We informed them they couldn't prevent us from exercising our constitutional rights. We were asked to carry out peaceful protests and not engage in violent activities. We told the Police that all our protest activities are peaceful demonstrations. We protested in the presence of the Governor Fashola. They tried to prevent us from speaking, but we refused.
Question 7: Does your protest attract state and non-state surveillance actors?
Interviewee: It attracts the state. On physical protests, the Police send officers to monitor the activities.
Question 8: Does this limit your freedom of speech when mobilising on social media?
Interviewee: There must be maturity in utilising social media. Google should filter messages.
What the Nigerian Government are doing is more of political. It is the Government that gains more from hate speech. In the build-up of the 2015 election, they utilised propaganda and hate speech to remove Goodluck Ebele Jonathan from power.
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW SESSION WITH JUSTICE 9
Question 1: What social media platforms do you engage with?
Interviewee: Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Question 2: Do you engage with non-commercial social media platforms such as Autistici,
Sindominio and Riseup.net?
195 Interviewee: No, I do not engage with such platforms.
Question 3: Can you recount on occurrences in Nigeria that leads to mobilisation for protest activities?
Interviewee: Most of the times when people have been mobilised for protests, it has often been at instances where the Government may have introduced a policy which is detrimental to the interest of the majority of the citizens. Secondly, the perceived abuse of power by the
Government and neglect of citizens leads to mobilisation for protest activities. For example, the mobilisation in the military era against austerity measures in the Babangida regime in the mid-80s.
196 APPENDIX 5
LINK TO SHORT FILM: A CALL FOR CLEARLY DEFINED DATA PROTECTION
LAW IN NIGERIA https://youtu.be/RR4Rqu148OY
197 APPENDIX 6
PLANNED POLICY ON DIGITAL REGULATIONS
Article 1
SECURITY OF NETWORKS AND SERVICES
1) The state shall ensure that providers of public electronic communications networks or of
publicly available electronic communications services take appropriate and proportionate
technical and organisational measures to appropriately manage the risks posed to the security
of networks and services. Having regard to the state of the art, those measures shall ensure a
level of security appropriate to the risk presented. In particular, measures including encryption
where appropriate, shall be taken to prevent and minimise the impact of security incidents on
users and on other networks and services.
2) The state shall ensure that providers of public electronic communications networks or of
publicly available electronic communication services notify without undue delay the
competent authority of a security incident that has had a significant impact on the operation of
networks or services.
In order to determine the significance of the impact of a security incident, where available the
following parameters shall, in particular be considered:
a) The number of users affected by the security incident
b) The duration of security incident
c) The geographical spread of the area affected by the security incident
d) The extent to which the functioning of the network of service is affected
e) The extent of impact on economic and societal activities
3) The state shall ensure that in the case of a particular and a significant threat of a security
incident in public electronic communications networks or publicly available electronic
communication services, providers of such networks or services shall inform their users
198 potentially affected by such a threat of any possible protective measure or remedies which can be taken by the users. Where appropriate, providers shall also inform their users of the threat itself.
Implementations and Enforcement
1) The competent authorities have the power to issue binding instructions, including those
regarding the measures required to remedy a security incident or prevent one from
occurring when a significant threat has been identified and time-limits for implementation
to providers of public electronic communications networks or publicly available electronic
communication services.
2) The state shall ensure that competent authorities have the power to require providers of
public electronic communications networks or publicly available electronic
communication services to:
a) Provide information needed to assess the security of their networks and services,
including documented security policies; and
b) Submit to a security audit carried out by a qualified independent body or a competent
authority and make the results thereof available to the competent authority; the cost of
the audit shall be paid by the provider
3) The state shall ensure that the competent authorities have all the powers necessary to
investigate cases of non-compliance and the effects thereof on the security of the networks
and services.
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