Protecting Nigerians' Online Civic Space

In this episode, Nafisa Atiku-Adejuwon and Chioma Agwuegbo gave insight into the realities of the Nigerian civic space, identified and addressed concerns, and explored solutions to safeguard the online civic space.

Transcript

Intro : [00:00:02] You're listening to Partners United on the Civic Space brought to you by Shehu Musa Yar'Adua Foundation.

Nafisa : [00:00:10] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Partners United podcast on the civic space brought to you by the Shehu Musa Yar'Adua Foundation. Today, we will discuss the significance of protecting Nigerians' online civic space. Chioma Agwuegbo, founder of TechHer, a digital advocacy and awareness platform, will be our guest today. Welcome, Chioma. 

Chioma : [00:00:10] Thank you for having me.

Nafisa : [00:00:32] Nigeria's online civic space, like that of other emerging democracies is increasingly under attack by state forces with a poor knowledge of digital platforms. And how do you work? Nigeria's place on the list of repressive governments that use digital sovereignty to enforce new legislation that advanced censorship, wide scale, systematic surveillance and micro-targeting continues to strengthen. The government's proscription of the popular social media network Twitter,  In June 2021, in response to the platform's enforcement of its content restrictions against President Muhammadu Buhari's account demonstrates the government's growing aggressiveness in its efforts to silence any form of dissent. The government claims risks to Nigeria's corporate existence while ignoring the economic, social, and other ramifications of these people's voices. This is in addition to the threat of dire consequences if media houses do not quit the platform. Ms. Chioma, thank you for joining us today. But before we delve into the discussion, could you kindly explain what is the online civic space and when did it gain momentum in Nigeria?

Chioma : [00:01:45] Thank you very much for that question. Civic spaces can simply be described as political, legislative, social or economic environments that allow citizens so men and women from all local governments, from all communities to just come together, share concerns, share their interests, and have conversations about the environment in which they belong. For instance, civic space could be people in Abuja talking about traffic lights that are not working or streetlights that are not working. It could be people in Kano talking about poor transportation. It could be people in Enugu talking about the need for government to make increased provisions for pregnant women or people with disabilities. The civic space essentially is the free space or free spaces for citizens to have conversations.

Nafisa : [00:02:35] Great. Thank you so much for that explanation. Was really, really awesome. You may recall that Twitter deleted the president's tweets in June 2021, prompting the government to suspend the country's Twitter feed. It was about that time everyone downloaded the VPN in order to access Twitter. When should online freedom of expression be regulated? And why are some people's freedom of speech impacted while others are not?

Chioma : [00:02:59] That's a very interesting question, and I think the first thing to say is we continue to have conversations about you mentioned something in your intro about sovereignty and things threatening Nigeria's security. We tend to treat security and sovereignty as infrastructure as opposed to human beings. So you could draw a circle around Nigeria and protect that circle. But if the people within that circle do not feel safe, then you cannot say you have protected anyone. And this is the challenge with the government's consistent intention to regulate social media over online spaces. It is not for the people, it is against the people. And so people don't have any investment in it, which is why, like you mentioned, everyone ran to get VPN. People were saying all sorts of things like our tweets are now coming from our branch in the UK or&