Ms Abimbola Olajumoke Olawumi, a blogger, has raised alarm alleging threat to her life by Mrs. Bisi Fayemi, wife of Kayode Fayemi, former governor of Ekiti State over a Facebook post in which she alleged that Mrs. Fayemi was arrested in Dubai in 2018 in connection with money laundering among other things.
Ms Olawunmi had petitioned the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Amnesty International, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) saying she received a call from a man who identified himself as Williams from the Department of State Services (DSS), asking her to report to the agency’s office over a petition filed by one Demola Obanise, a man she identified as Fayemi’s brother-in-law.
The blogger added that she has also been receiving calls from strange numbers threatening her, alleging that these threats started after she wrote on Facebook that Bisi was arrested in 2018 in Dubai over alleged money laundering.
On her part, Mrs. Fayemi had also, through her lawyer, petitioned the Ekiti state commissioner of police, accusing Ms Olawumi of posting “malicious, false and offensive messages” about her on Facebook. Mrs. Fayemi said Ms Olawunmi’s Facebook posts on November 11, 2022, contravene section 24 of the Cybercrimes (prohibition, prevention, etc) Act, 2015 and were designed to malign her character. She asked the Ekiti police commissioner to ensure that Olawumi faces the law for the post against her.
Mrs. Fayemi, in the petition, asked the commissioner of police, Ekiti State Command to use his good office to bring Ms Olawunmi to justice by investigating her infractions, infringements and invasion of her privacy and save her and the society at large from the blogger’s nefarious, criminal, malicious and calculated mischievous posts.
The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice on July 10, 2020, declared that the provisions of section 24 of the Cybercrimes Act, 2015 violate the right to freedom of expression.
In the case of The Incorporated Trustees of Laws and Rights Awareness Initiatives v. Federal Republic of Nigeria, the ECOWAS Court held that “the provisions of section 24 of Cybercrimes Act violates Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Nigeria is a state party”.
The Court ordered the Federal Government to either amend or repeal section 24 of the Cybercrimes Act in accordance with Nigerian obligations under Article 1 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
