ABUJA, Nigeria – November 30, 2025 – In its scathing World Report 2025, released this week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has condemned the Nigerian government for a “disturbing pattern of repression” against dissent, spotlighting the draconian prosecution of #EndBadGovernance protesters and the weaponization of the Cybercrimes Act to muzzle journalists. Amid this clampdown, the Court of Appeal on Friday struck down a rights violation suit by Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu – days after his terrorism conviction and life sentence – while his group ramps up overseas campaigns framing northern insecurity as a “Christian genocide” to rally international pressure.
Protest Persecution: Minors on Trial for Treason
HRW’s annual review, covering events through late 2024, details how authorities met the August 2024 #EndBadGovernance protests – a nationwide outcry against skyrocketing inflation, subsidy cuts, and elite excess – with threats, violence, and mass arrests. Dubbed a “politically motivated” bid for “regime change” by officials, the demonstrations saw security forces kill at least 24 in cities like Kano, Maiduguri, and Kaduna, per Amnesty International cross-verified data.Over 1,000 were detained, with hundreds held for months in squalid conditions, including at least 76 charged in November 2024 with treason – a capital offense punishable by death – alongside incitement to mutiny and property destruction.
Among the accused: 30 minors, aged 14 to 17, who collapsed in Abuja’s Federal High Court during their November 1, 2024 arraignment from exhaustion after three months’ detention without trial.Court documents list 10 felony counts, alleging the group “waged war against the state” during the 10-day unrest that paralyzed Lagos and Abuja. Rights groups decried the charges as “disproportionate,” violating the Child Rights Act barring minors from capital trials; four collapsed defendants were rushed for medical aid, their pleas deferred to January 24, 2025.
President Bola Tinubu, facing global backlash, ordered the minors’ unconditional release on November 4, 2024, via Information Minister Mohammed Idris, who announced a probe into their arrests and rehabilitation support through the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry. Treason charges against the juveniles were dropped, but the adults’ cases persist, with Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) vowing legal challenges. HRW’s Nigeria researcher, Anietie Akpan, called it “state terror against the vulnerable,” urging ECOWAS courts – which ruled in 2024 that #EndSARS crackdowns violated rights – to intervene.The report logs over 20 protest deaths and hundreds detained, tying the response to a broader “aversion to dissent” seen in 2024 across Africa.
Cybercrimes Act: A Tool for Silencing Scrutiny
HRW and Amnesty spotlight the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act 2015 – amended in February 2024 to exempt “journalistic expression” – as a persistent “sword over the press.” Despite reforms, at least eight journalists faced arrests or prosecutions under it post-amendment, per Reporters Without Borders (RSF), contributing to Nigeria’s 2025 World Press Freedom Index plunge to 122nd globally.
Exhibit A: Segun Olatunji, then-editor of FirstNews online, abducted from his Lagos home on March 15, 2024, by over a dozen armed men in military uniforms. Blindfolded, chained, and flown to Abuja’s Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) detention, he endured 14 days of isolation, beatings, and sleep deprivation for a story alleging corruption by Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila and President Muhammadu Buhari’s nephew – claims FirstNews retracted under duress. Released April 8 after the International Press Institute intervened, Olatunji was dumped 400 km from home without charges, his ordeal exposed by RSF as “torture for truth-telling.
Similar fates befell others: Globalupfront’s Madu Onuorah detained 10 days in 2024 for critiquing Tinubu; Sahara Reporters’ Omoyele Sowore arrested January 2025 for an “illegal IGP” tweet; and TikToker Olumide Ogunsanwo (“Sea King”) held since December 2024 for insulting officials.
SERAP sued Tinubu and governors at ECOWAS in 2025, alleging the Act’s Section 24 – criminalizing “offensive” online messages – chills free speech, with penalties up to 10 years or N7 million fines.
2025 index cites 110 verified attacks on Nigeria’s press in 2024 alone, from raids to abductions.
Kanu’s Conviction: Life Behind Bars, Global Echoes
The saga intensified with Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB’s detained founder, whose November 20, 2025 terrorism conviction by Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court capped a decade-long ordeal. Omotosho found prosecutors proved seven counts under the repealed Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Act 2013 – including incitement via “sit-at-home” orders enforced with threats – sentencing Kanu to life imprisonment, to run concurrently with prior terms. Kanu, arrested in Kenya in 2021 after jumping bail in 2017, decried the verdict as relying on “struck-out charges” from Justice Binta Nyako’s 2022 dismissal, overturned by the Supreme Court.Transferred to Sokoto Prison, he rejected the sentence, citing ignored rulings from Umuahia, Enugu, and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention deeming his rendition illegal.
On November 28, the Court of Appeal struck his fundamental rights suit against DSS Director-General Yusuf Bichi and Attorney-General Lateef Fagbemi as “academic” post-conviction, per Justice Hamma Abubakar’s panel – denying prayers for better detention conditions he once sought. Special Counsel Aloy Ejimakor slammed the life term under the 2013 Act – repealed by the 2022 version with milder penalties – as a “judicial error.”
From his cell, Kanu fired a November 6 letter to U.S. President Donald Trump, alleging the “genocide” – once northern-focused – has “metastasized” to Igboland via state-backed militias posing as “unknown gunmen,” killing 2,000+ youths since 2021 per Intersociety data.
IPOB’s U.S. chapter echoed this in a November 3 statement, vowing support for Trump’s “inquiry” into ethno-religious cleansing – from Hausa erasure to Southern Kaduna bloodbaths – and planning peaceful D.C. protests.A Cable analysis traced the narrative’s 165,000+ X mentions (reaching 2.83 billion impressions) to IPOB networks since 2016, blending Biafran secession with Christian persecution to lobby Western capitals.9fb176
Nigeria’s Information Ministry dismissed it as “doctored videos and fabricated reports” by IPOB to “hoodwink” allies like USAID, noting most insurgency victims are Muslim and no genocide meets UN thresholds. BBC probes exposed groups like Intersociety for inflating figures, risking inflamed tensions.HRW, while noting 2,266 conflict deaths in early 2025 (ACLED), urges accountability over narratives.
As SERAP and NGE demand Cybercrimes repeal and protest rights enforcement, X trends #FreeThe76 with cries of “democracy’s death by decree.” HRW warns: without reforms, Nigeria risks a “lost generation” of silenced youth. Tinubu’s team pledges dialogue, but as Kanu’s ink flows to Trump, the global gaze sharpens – will it illuminate justice, or deepen divides?
Treason Traps and Silenced Voices: HRW Slams Nigeria’s Crackdown on Protesters and Press as Kanu Fights Life Sentence
