By Janet Oyeleye
The National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, and AccountabilityLab Nigeria have called for a coordinated inter-agency response system to ensure prompt and effective justice for victims of digital rights violations.
The call was made on Wednesday in Abuja at a multi-stakeholder convening on “Building a Coordinated Response System for Digital Rights Violations,” which brought together government institutions, regulators, civil society organisations, the legal profession, the media, and telecommunications and technology operators.
Executive Secretary of the NHRC, Chief Tony Ojukwu, SAN, said the meeting was convened against the backdrop of Nigeria’s expanding digital ecosystem and its growing role in civic engagement, investigative journalism and democratic dialogue.
He questioned whether existing mechanisms were sufficiently coordinated to respond swiftly and accountably when citizens’ rights are violated online.
Ojukwu said while CSOs document abuses, the media exposes violations and lawyers institute actions, responses have remained fragmented, with unclear referral pathways, weak digital evidence preservation procedures and delays in high-stakes cases.
He stressed that constitutional guarantees of dignity, privacy, freedom of expression and assembly apply both online and offline, reaffirming the Commission’s mandate under the NHRC Act, as amended, to receive and investigate complaints, facilitate remedies, review laws against human rights standards and collaborate with state and non-state actors.
He said the Commission was ready to anchor the proposed collaborative framework, but noted that sustainable protection of digital rights requires collective action by law enforcement agencies, the judiciary, regulators, CSOs and technology and telecoms platforms.
The NHRC boss urged stakeholders to ensure that enforcement actions around cybercrime, national security and online harms comply with constitutional safeguards, due process and international human rights obligations.
He cited the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Amendment Act 2024, including the revision of Section 24, and warned against statutory enforcement that inadvertently restricts protected speech, access to information and civic space.
Ojukwu said the balance will be critical ahead of the 2027 electoral cycle, when the digital space will play a major role in political discourse, voter mobilisation and public accountability.
He charged participants to move beyond recommendations to practical institutional arrangements, listing eight priority areas for consensus: standardised complaint-intake mechanisms, clearly defined inter-institutional referral pathways, fast-track channels for urgent or high-risk threats, uniform criteria for documenting and preserving digital evidence, safeguards against reprisals for complainants, victims and whistleblowers, secure and privacy-compliant information sharing, clear triggers for statutory, judicial or public-interest action, and use of trends data to inform legislative and policy reforms.
On the Ripoti platform, Ojukwu said its integration should go beyond documentation to enable referral-to-remedy, and case-to-reform transitions, with strict data protection safeguards.
He also called for institutional focal points, secure communication channels, quarterly review mechanisms, joint advocacy and sustained CSO collaboration, adding that success should be measured by whether victims can obtain swift, safe and effective justice.
Country Director of AccountabilityLab Nigeria, Odeh Friday, said a large number of complaints on human rights violations are received but rarely progress to resolution, a situation that has eroded public confidence in reporting.
“Most Nigerians are no more comfortable in even bringing these, their complaints out because they feel they’ll never get justice,” he said.
Odeh said the convening seeks to create a system where citizens clearly know where to report, how cases will be handled and which institutions are responsible.
He said AccountabilityLab’s grassroots networks have helped build trust with communities and CSOs, enabling it to receive reports that would otherwise remain unaddressed, including digital rights violations, loan shark activities, identity theft and misinformation.
He noted that access to justice remains difficult for many who lack resources or knowledge to pursue cases in court, hence the partnership with the NHRC to establish an inter-agency coordination mechanism involving the Nigeria Data Protection Commission, Federal Ministry of Justice, Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Police National Cybercrime Centre and other relevant agencies.
According to him, the proposed system will clarify first-responder roles, establish referral channels and support victims through the resolution process.
Odeh said Ripoti is designed as a bridge between citizens and responsible agencies, not a replacement for government institutions or judicial processes, helping to direct complaints appropriately and facilitate engagement for resolution.
