Following the Buhari regime’s decision to ban Twitter last July, a group of lawyers, Civil Society Organisations, media organisations, and journalists – self-included – jointly sued the Federal Government of Nigeria in the ECOWAS Court.
The purpose of the lawsuit was not only to obtain a reversal of the ban but to have it declared unconstitutional for future reference. Before our lawsuit could reach its logical climax, the Nigerian regime pre-empted it by lifting the ban – or at least that is what it tried to do.
Attorney-General Abubakar Malami submitted a motion in January calling for the court to strike out the case which he described as an “academic exercise.
“Conveniently, this motion if granted, would stop the court from correctly declaring the ban to be an unconstitutional power grab, and imposing the responsibility for financial restitution to affected businesses on the Federal Government.
While that motion remains up for consideration, I have decided to publish my supporting statement for the purpose of record and to give the general public a window into what the media and civic space has endured under this truly abominable administration.
1.My name is David Inyene Hundeyin. I was born on 6 May 1990 in Lagos, Nigeria.
2. I am an independent investigative journalist working with NewswireNGR, BusinessDay Nigeria, The Africa Report, and Substack. I have also worked in Television at Channels Television and TheSheet TV.
3. The civic space in Nigeria is shrinking. For a long time, the existence of web-based new media platforms has served as the only reliable way of holding the government accountable, due to its suffocating influence and control over legacy broadcast and print media platforms.
The Buhari regime is now making a play for control over this last frontier of journalistic freedom by incrementally criminalising web-based journalism and social media.
The goal is to give the Nigerian government complete and absolute control over the flow of information in Nigeria, and total power to sell whatever narratives it wants, in a manner similar to North Korea or pre-1979 China.
4. Since 2019, General Buhari’s regime has introduced no fewer than 6 separate legislative bills and regulatory amendments targeting press freedom, freedom of expression, and internet-based journalism.
I have worked extensively on exposing these attempts to shrink Nigeria’s civic space and turn the entirety of Nigerian media into yet another government mouthpiece.
5. The Buhari regime has now taken this war on freedom of speech and independent journalism to a new level of ferocity with its decision to ban Nigerian network operators from providing access to Twitter.
On June 4, the Federal Ministry of Information and Communication announced that it had mandated all network operators to suspend access to Twitter in Nigeria.
Consequently, it became impossible to access Twitter in Nigeria except via VPN. It further extended this onslaught by announcing that all social media platforms and OTTs such as WhatsApp and Instagram will be required to register in Nigeria or have their services suspended too.
6. Also, on the night of October 20, 2020, millions of Nigerians, particularly residents of the Lekki area of Lagos and its environs experienced severe internet access outages or extremely slow speeds.
A statement later released to me by ALTON, the umbrella body for Nigerian mobile network operators revealed that the outage was caused by a deliberate and systematic series of fibre optic cable cuts, timed to match with the exact moments that soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters at Lekki Toll Plaza.
7. As a result of my work exposing and dissecting draconian legislation which they repeatedly attempted to sneak through multiple parliamentary readings, several powerful people in Nigeria’s government have come to see me as an enemy.
Following my work documenting the #EndSARS protests and particularly my story which exposed the government’s culpability in sabotaging fibre optic cables to restrict internet access during the Lekki Toll Plaza Massacre, I was forced to flee the country for my life and seek asylum protection.
8. On March 17, 2020, I published an investigative story on NewswireNGR titled ‘The Full Story of Nigeria’s Unfolding Coronavirus Scandal.’
The Newswire website immediately came under a severe DDOS attack which forced it offline for nearly 2 days until the web management team managed to bring it back up.
On April 14, 2021, while drafting a story about Communication Minister Isa Pantami’s links to Islamic extremism, my Google account was hacked and I had to change all my important passwords.
9. On April 18, 2021, after publishing the story titled ‘Isa Ali Pantami – The Inside Story of Nigeria’s Minister of Communications’, Newswire once again came under a heavy cyberattack that briefly forced it offline.
Read also: Twitter ban: Dear Mr Buhari, what was the point?
On May 11, as soon as I published a story on Newswire titled ‘Murder In Uyo: Who Killed Hiny Umoren?’, the Newswire website came under the most severe cyberattack ever experienced, forcing it offline for 3 days.
When the team got it back up, the attackers then hacked the website’s back-end and deleted several days’ worth of stories going back to May 4, including the story in question.
The team was forced to re-upload the story using a fresh URL. Despite this, a network of Twitter bot accounts then began circulating the old (dead) link as proof that Newswire “retracted and deleted” the story.
10. On April 14, 2021, while drafting the aforementioned story about Isa Pantami, I suffered a SIM service outage from my Airtel Nigeria SIM which was in one of my devices and was in roaming mode.
It turned out that my SIM had been cloned by someone trying to gain control over my devices.
I only found out what happened when my WhatsApp security prompt notified me that someone else was trying to sign into my WhatsApp account, which would only be possible if they had access to the login code that could only be sent to my number.
11. These and other instances of deliberate disruption of communication services so as to frustrate effective documentation or compromise journalism have convinced me that the Nigerian government is actively fighting on the wrong side of a fierce information war, with the goal of elevating state propaganda to the status of objective truth and destroying all forms of independent or critical journalism, including that which is crowd-sourced or facilitated by social media.
12. That I depose to this Witness Statement on Oath believing its content to be true and correct and also in accordance with the Oath’s Act.
The case continues and the next date of hearing has been set for May 10, 2022.
