…245 documented civic space violations, 570 media reports expose deepening pressures on free expression, accountability, and public trust.
By Collins Odigie Ojiehanor
Nearly three decades after Nigeria’s return to democratic rule, new evidence suggests that while elections continue to define political transitions, the everyday freedoms that sustain democracy – free expression, access to information, peaceful assembly and independent journalism – remain under increasing strain.
A new nationwide assessment by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) has documented hundreds of incidents restricting civic freedoms in 2025, painting a troubling picture of a democratic space where journalists, citizens, activists and media organisations continue to face intimidation, arrests, legal harassment and other forms of repression.
The findings were unveiled on Monday, July 13, 2026, during the launch and public review of the 2025 Journalism & Civic Space Status Report, titled Silenced Voices, Shrinking Space: Civic Freedoms Under Pressure, at the 18th Wole Soyinka Centre Media Lecture Series held at The Providence Hotel, Ikeja GRA, Lagos.
Held under the theme “Beyond the Ballot: Measuring Democracy Through Security, Welfare, Accountability and Public Trust”, the event brought together journalists, academics, media executives, civil society leaders and governance experts to examine the health of Nigeria’s democracy beyond periodic elections.
The report argues that democratic progress cannot be measured solely by the conduct of elections but also by whether citizens can speak freely, journalists can report without fear, civic organisations can operate independently and public institutions remain accountable to the people.
Its findings suggest that these democratic foundations continue to face sustained pressure.
Drawing from systematic media monitoring conducted between January and December 2025, the report documented 245 verified civic space incidents referenced across 570 media reports published by 54 media organisations nationwide.
The incidents affected core democratic rights, including freedom of expression, access to information, peaceful assembly, association and broader civic participation, revealing what the report describes as persistent restrictions on Nigeria’s civic space.
A Year of Mounting Pressures
Presenting the report, Lekan Otufodunrin, Executive Director of the Media Career Development Network, explained that the publication represents months of monitoring and analysis aimed at understanding how civic freedoms evolved across Nigeria throughout 2025.
According to him, the report is more than a compilation of isolated incidents. Rather, it captures recurring patterns affecting journalism, civic participation and democratic accountability across the country.
The monitoring exercise reviewed reports from newspapers, online news platforms, television, and radio stations to identify verified cases involving violations of civic rights and attacks on democratic freedoms.
Its analysis found that state actors remained the dominant perpetrators. Of the 245 documented incidents, 219 cases, representing 89.4 percent, involved state actors, while 26 incidents (10.6 percent) were linked to non-state actors. Among government institutions, the Nigeria Police Force accounted for 118 incidents, representing 54 per cent of all state-linked cases documented during the reporting period.
The report also observed an important shift in the nature of civic space violations. Contrary to public perception that civic repression is largely characterised by physical attacks, more than half of the documented incidents occurred through administrative or institutional means.
Of the total cases recorded, 145 incidents (59.2 percent) involved non-violent measures such as arrests, police summons, detentions, lawsuits, regulatory sanctions and other administrative actions. Meanwhile, 100 incidents (40.8 per cent) involved violent acts, including killings, assaults, harassment, intimidation and destruction of property.
The report notes that these institutional and legal measures often attract less public attention than physical attacks but can be equally effective in discouraging public participation and suppressing civic freedoms.
Freedom of Expression Under Greatest Pressure
Among the civic rights monitored, freedom of expression emerged as the most threatened. The report recorded 172 incidents, representing 70.2 per cent of all documented violations, involving restrictions on individuals’ ability to express opinions, publish information or criticise public institutions.
The right to peaceful assembly followed with 62 incidents (25.3 per cent), while freedom of participation accounted for 11 incidents (4.5 per cent). No documented case involving freedom of association was recorded during the reporting period, although the report cautioned that this should not be interpreted as evidence that such violations did not occur. Instead, it may reflect under-reporting, media constraints or limitations in documentation.
Another significant finding was the changing profile of victims. While journalists remained among the groups most affected, the report found a sharp increase in violations involving ordinary citizens, suggesting that civic restrictions are extending beyond media organisations to affect broader public participation in governance and democratic discourse.
Despite the scale of documented violations, Otufodunrin warned that the report likely captures only a fraction of what actually occurred across Nigeria.
He noted that in several states, many incidents involving journalists never made it into public records.
“We are neck-deep in reporting what’s happening to other people; we are not concerned enough to document what’s happening to us. So we are getting used to it,” he said.
According to him, one of the strongest observations from the monitoring exercise was that journalists themselves often fail to report abuses directed at members of their own profession.
He attributed this partly to economic dependence on state governments. “In some state environments, journalists are handicapped,” he said.
“In some of the media houses in some states, journalists are literally being paid by the state governments. They have them on their payroll. So even when things happen to these journalists, they don’t even dare to report for fear of maybe losing out or whatever,” he added.
He also described the changing economics of the Nigerian media industry as another major concern.
“One of the very frightening dimensions that we also noticed is that across the country many media houses, many newspaper houses, no longer have full-time staff. Most of the staff are freelance; they are paid based on what is published.”
Those realities, he suggested, contribute to under-reporting of attacks on journalists and weaken the media’s ability to defend its own civic space.
His observations mirror one of the report’s own limitations, which acknowledges that many violations may never be documented because of restricted media access, editorial priorities, fear of reprisals, security challenges and limited reporting capacity across parts of the country.
The report cautions that low numbers of recorded incidents in some states should not be mistaken for an absence of violations.
From Documentation to Action
Otufodunrin stressed that the objective of the annual assessment is not simply to produce another research publication but to stimulate concrete reforms.
He said the challenge now is ensuring that policymakers engage seriously with the findings and translate the recommendations into measurable improvements for journalists, civic actors and democratic institutions.
“We’re moving from talk to actionable recommendations that can be taken up,” he said, stressing that the report should become a practical policy tool rather than remain another publication on library shelves.
For the organisers, the report serves as both a record of documented abuses and a roadmap for strengthening democratic accountability in Nigeria.
As the conversations at the media lecture continued, attention shifted from documenting violations to confronting a more pressing question: How can Nigeria protect those who protect democracy by holding power to account?
If the presentation of the report laid bare the scale of civic space violations in Nigeria, the stakeholder dialogue that followed shifted attention to a more difficult question: What must change to prevent the situation from deteriorating further?
Moderated by Ayo Mairo-Ese, Anchor at Arise News, the high-level panel brought together some of Nigeria’s leading media scholars and practitioners, including Professor Umaru Pate, Professor of Communication at Bayero University, Kano; Lanre Arogundade, Executive Director of the International Press Centre (IPC); Bernard Akede, Head of Reportorial and International Correspondent at News Central Television; Mariam Alo, Programme Officer at the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ); and Khadijah El-Usman, Senior Programmes Officer for Anglophone West Africa at Paradigm Initiative.
Their discussion moved beyond the report’s statistics, examining what the findings reveal about the health of Nigerian democracy and the growing challenges confronting journalists, civic actors and institutions responsible for safeguarding fundamental freedoms.
LR: Umaru Pate, Lekan Otufodurin, Lanre Arogundade, Benard Akede, Mariam Alo (online); Khadijah El-Usman (online); and Ayo Marie-Ese, during the high-level panel session.
Journalists Are Good at Telling Other People’s Stories, Not Their Own
Responding to the report, Professor Pate described the publication as an important contribution to understanding the realities confronting journalists across Nigeria, commending the painstaking effort invested in documenting experiences that often go unnoticed.
“On behalf of all of us here, we congratulate the Centre for the painstaking duty of compiling the report and helping to tell the public some of the experiences of our colleagues,” he said.
For Pate, however, the report should serve as the beginning of sustained advocacy rather than the end of a documentation exercise.
He argued that many policymakers and even members of the public remain largely unaware of the multiple forms of insecurity confronting journalists.
“We need serious advocacy,” he said.
“We need serious enlightenment for them to even understand the state of the journalists.”
While discussions around journalists’ safety often focus on physical attacks, Pate urged stakeholders to adopt a broader understanding of safety.
“We are talking about safety,” he said. “Psychological safety, physical safety, economic safety, which we have just emphasised, gender safety, and now even digital safety, and legal safety.”
He lamented that journalists, despite chronicling the struggles of society, rarely tell their own stories.
“Many individuals do not even know that the journalist is going through some serious experiences, either psychologically or economically,” he said.
“We are good in telling other people’s stories. But not telling about our own.
“In other words, we are good at making other people’s business our business. But our own business, we keep it low.”
His observation echoed one of the recurring themes raised throughout the event: that attacks on journalists are often normalised, underreported or quietly endured without attracting the public attention given to other rights violations.
Economic Vulnerability Fuels Ethical Risks
Beyond physical insecurity, Professor Pate identified the deteriorating economic conditions within Nigeria’s media industry as one of the greatest threats to professional journalism.
He criticised media owners who fail to provide decent remuneration while relying on journalists to uphold democratic accountability.
“We know many publishers and media owners who care less about the economic safety of people who work for them,” he said.
“Employers go for cheap labour, yet there are no legal mechanisms in this country that can check such behaviours.”
According to him, delayed salaries, poor wages and exploitative employment conditions have created an environment where many journalists struggle simply to survive.
He noted that unemployment and economic desperation often leave media professionals with little choice but to tolerate poor treatment.
“People who do not pay salaries for months. People who pay below the minimum rate. People who maltreat their staff,” he said.
“But because unemployment is all over the place, people are desperate to survive; they keep quiet.”
Such conditions, he warned, have consequences extending far beyond journalists themselves.
“The alternative is this,” he said.
“They look for other ways of making money, either through blackmail or through praise singing or any other unethically approved ways of survival.”
For Pate, protecting journalists’ welfare is therefore not merely a labour issue but an essential requirement for preserving ethical journalism and public trust.
From Documentation to Policy Reform
Professor Pate urged journalism organisations, professional associations and media unions to move beyond expressions of concern by using reports such as the WSCIJ publication to pursue concrete legal and policy reforms.
“My take is, we need the major bodies in our profession to take up such documents,” he said.
“And then see how we can influence policy.”
He also challenged journalists and their representative bodies to test labour violations through the courts where necessary.
“And where we need to fight legally, let it also be done,” he added.
He questioned why exploitative employment practices within the media industry have rarely faced legal scrutiny.
“None of us ever went to court to test some of the behaviours of our employers.”
The veteran communication scholar warned that professional fragmentation continues to weaken journalism’s collective voice.
“So long as we are fragmented”, he said, and some of our bodies that should be our protectors are busy chasing for assistance here and there to hold meetings, then suddenly we will lack the legitimacy.
“We will lack the spine to be able to look at those whom we believe are also maltreating us and tell them the correct thing to do.”
Election Coverage Still a Dangerous Assignment
While the report documents numerous cases involving harassment, arrests and intimidation of journalists, another pressing concern raised during the dialogue centred on election reporting.
Asked what reforms would make the greatest difference for journalists covering elections and public affairs, Lanre Arogundade, Executive Director of the International Press Centre, noted that attacks on journalists during elections remain a recurring pattern.
He first commended the Wole Soyinka Centre for producing evidence capable of informing future reforms.
“Let me congratulate the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism for the report and even for bringing us together to have this conversation,” he said.
Drawing from years of documenting attacks against journalists, Arogundade recalled that some of the most serious assaults during elections were carried out not by security agencies but by political actors themselves.
“We’ve also documented attacks,” he said.
“Some of those attacks occurred while journalists were covering elections. As a matter of fact, those journalists are attacked, some of them not by security men or by the police or the army, but by party agents with politicians,” he added.
He cited a disturbing example from Nigeria’s 2023 general elections. “I recall that during the 2023 election, a female reporter with AIT was assaulted somewhere in Ifako-Ijaiye with a very top politician standing by, simply because she wanted to ask him some questions.”
His remarks reinforced one of the report’s central conclusions, that threats to journalism come from both state and non-state actors, particularly during politically sensitive periods.
While security agencies accounted for the majority of documented violations, the report also recorded attacks by political thugs, mobs, hired groups and other non-state actors, illustrating the multiple fronts on which civic freedoms are challenged.
Although Nigeria was not conducting a nationwide general election in 2025, discussions during the stakeholder dialogue repeatedly highlighted the vulnerability of journalists during electoral periods.
Lanre Arogundade’s account of attacks on journalists during the 2023 general elections served as a reminder that election coverage remains one of the most dangerous assignments in Nigerian journalism.
Reporters covering campaigns, polling units and post-election developments often find themselves caught between political actors, security agencies and increasingly polarised supporters.
Rather than being recognised as independent observers performing a public service, they frequently become targets of intimidation, obstruction and physical violence.
The report suggests that unless these patterns are addressed before future elections, journalists will continue to perform one of democracy’s most important functions under conditions of unacceptable risk.
Ensuring the safety of election reporters, stakeholders argued, is therefore not merely a media concern but an electoral integrity issue.
Without independent journalists documenting events freely and accurately, the credibility of electoral processes can be severely undermined.
Democracy Requires More Than Elections
Throughout the dialogue, speakers repeatedly returned to the theme of the lecture series: Beyond the Ballot.
The consensus was that democracy cannot be judged solely by successful elections or peaceful transfers of power.
Instead, participants argued that the true measure of democratic health lies in whether citizens can question authority without intimidation, journalists can investigate freely, civil society organisations can advocate without harassment and institutions respond transparently to public scrutiny.
Bernard Akede, Mariam Alo and Khadijah El-Usman echoed the broader call for stronger institutional accountability, greater protection for journalists and civic actors, and closer collaboration among government institutions, media organisations and civil society to safeguard democratic freedoms.
They stressed that documenting violations is important, but sustained advocacy, public engagement and institutional reforms are essential if the findings are to translate into meaningful change.
The discussion ultimately reinforced the report’s central message: shrinking civic space is not simply a media issue. It is a governance issue, a human rights issue and, above all, a democratic issue.
For participants, protecting journalists is inseparable from protecting the public’s right to know. When reporters are intimidated into silence, the consequences extend far beyond the newsroom; they weaken accountability, diminish transparency and erode public trust in democratic institutions.
Beyond Documentation, Protecting Civic Space and Nigeria’s Democratic Future
The 2025 Journalism and Civic Space Status Report is more than a record of documented violations. It is, perhaps more importantly, a barometer of the health of Nigeria’s democracy.
Its findings suggest that the country’s democratic journey is increasingly being shaped not only by electoral outcomes but also by the extent to which citizens are able to exercise fundamental freedoms without fear of intimidation, arrest or violence.
Throughout 2025, civic space was influenced by a combination of political, economic and security developments. The declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State, worsening economic hardship following subsidy reforms, persistent insecurity across parts of northern Nigeria, the continued trial of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu, and nationwide protests over governance and the rising cost of living all contributed to an environment in which civic participation became both more visible and, at times, more contested.
According to the report, these developments did not occur in isolation. They shaped the patterns of civic space violations documented throughout the year, influencing how citizens engaged with government and how institutions responded to dissent.
For democracy advocates, that relationship is significant. When citizens are unable to criticise public officials, organise peacefully, access information or demand accountability without fear, democratic institutions become weaker regardless of how regularly elections are conducted.
Journalists at the Frontline of Democratic Accountability
Perhaps no group better illustrates this reality than journalists. The report documents numerous cases involving reporters who were assaulted, detained, intimidated or prosecuted while carrying out their professional responsibilities.
Among those highlighted were Tega Oghenedoro (Fejiro Oliver), publisher of Secret Reporters, who was arrested after publishing reports critical of political figures; Friday Alefia of THISDAY newspaper, arrested under the Cybercrimes Act following publications concerning a federal lawmaker; and Daniel Ojukwu of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), allegedly assaulted by police officers while on assignment.
Similarly, Joseph Kanjo of The Guardian, attacked during local government by-elections; Babagana Kolo of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), assaulted while covering the presentation of a state budget; and Benedict Uwalaka, a Daily Trust photojournalist attacked while covering a story in Lagos.
The report also documented cases involving activists, lawyers, content creators and ordinary citizens whose encounters with law enforcement raised broader concerns about freedom of expression and the application of the Cybercrimes Act.
Collectively, these cases illustrate that the shrinking civic space extends beyond traditional media, affecting a growing number of Nigerians who use both conventional and digital platforms to participate in public discourse.
A Call for Institutional and Policy Reforms
While documenting violations is essential, speakers at the media lecture agreed that evidence alone cannot transform the civic space.
The report calls for sustained engagement by policymakers, media organisations, professional bodies, civil society organisations and citizens to strengthen the legal and institutional safeguards protecting civic freedoms.
Among its key recommendations is the need for stronger protection of journalists and media practitioners, improved accountability for attacks against members of the press, and reforms that prevent the misuse of laws designed for legitimate security purposes.
The report also encourages media organisations to invest more deliberately in documenting attacks on journalists, strengthening investigative reporting on civic space issues and expanding analytical journalism that examines the structural causes of violations rather than limiting coverage to isolated incidents.
It notes that although 502 of the 570 media reports analysed were straight news stories, only a small proportion consisted of investigative features, editorials, interviews and analytical reports capable of sustaining public attention beyond the initial incident.
According to the report, deeper explanatory journalism is essential if civic space violations are to be understood not merely as isolated events but as recurring patterns requiring institutional reform.
The report further warns against the growing use of the Cybercrimes Act to prosecute journalists, activists and citizens for legitimate expression, arguing that such practices risk encouraging self-censorship and narrowing the space for democratic debate.
Beyond government action, participants emphasised the responsibility of media owners to improve journalists’ welfare, strengthen newsroom independence and uphold ethical employment standards.
As Professor Umaru Pate observed during the dialogue, protecting journalism requires attention not only to physical attacks but also to the economic, psychological, legal, digital and gender-related challenges confronting media professionals.
Without those protections, he warned, the profession itself becomes increasingly vulnerable.
Beyond the Ballot
As the 18th Wole Soyinka Centre Media Lecture Series drew to a close, the conversation returned to the question that framed the day’s discussions: What truly defines a healthy democracy?
The consensus among participants was clear. Democracy is not sustained by elections alone.
Ballot papers may determine who governs, but it is the protection of civic freedoms that determines how a nation is governed.
It is measured by whether journalists can investigate without intimidation, whether citizens can question authority without fear of arrest, whether civil society organisations can advocate freely, and whether institutions remain accountable to the people they serve.
The 2025 Journalism and Civic Space Status Report offers a sobering assessment of where Nigeria currently stands.
It documents a year in which journalists continued to report despite harassment, citizens continued to speak despite intimidation, and civic actors continued to demand accountability despite increasing pressure.
Yet it also offers something more enduring than statistics. It provides evidence.
- Evidence that democratic freedoms require constant vigilance.
- Evidence that shrinking civic space weakens public trust.
- Evidence that protecting journalists ultimately means protecting every citizen’s right to know.
In many respects, the report transforms the theme of this year’s lecture series from a conference slogan into a democratic imperative.
For if elections are the gateway to democracy, then security, welfare, accountability and public trust are the pillars that sustain it.
And unless those pillars are strengthened, participants warned, democracy risks becoming an event marked by ballots rather than a system defined by rights, freedoms and accountable governance.