A recent piece by 1st Attorneys, titled "The Legal Effects of Google Searches in Nigerian Law," is a genuinely useful survey of how the courts and legislation in Nigeria are catching up with the digital footprints we all leave behind. Its treatment of the right to be forgotten under the NDPA 2023, its comparison of the Hillary Ogom and Adunni Ade decisions against Google, and its discussion of electronic evidence under the amended Evidence Act are all well researched and worth reading. Where the article falters, however, is in its account of Section 24 of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc.) Act, and the error is significant enough to warrant a correction, particularly because Section 24 is the provision most often invoked against ordinary Nigerians for things said or searched online.
What the article says
The article describes Section 24 as prohibiting the knowing transmission of communications that are "grossly offensive, pornographic, or constitute cyberstalking," and elsewhere describes the offence as covering material sent with intent to cause annoyance, inconvenience, danger or injury (see the original article, Part III, under "Section 24: Cyberstalking and Harassment" and "Scenario 5"). This is a faithful description of Section 24 as it stood between 2015 and mid-2024. It is not, however, an accurate description of the law today.
What actually changed
The Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc.) (Amendment) Act 2024 rewrote Section 24(1) substantially. The old provision criminalised messages that were grossly offensive, pornographic, indecent, obscene or menacing, or that the sender knew to be false and sent for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, ill will or needless anxiety. That sprawling list of subjective harms was precisely what made the old Section 24 so controversial. It was the provision most frequently deployed against bloggers, journalists, activists and ordinary citizens for social media posts that offended a complainant, and its vagueness attracted sustained criticism from civil society and the legal profession for years.
The 2024 amendment discards that language entirely. The new Section 24(1) now criminalises only messages that are pornographic, or messages the sender knows to be false and sends for the purpose of causing a breakdown of law and order or posing a threat to life. Everything in between, the grossly offensive post, the insulting comment, the message calculated merely to annoy or embarrass, no longer falls within the section at all. The offence has moved from policing subjective feelings such as annoyance and insult to policing objective and considerably narrower harms tied to public order and safety.
Why this matters beyond pedantry
This is not a minor drafting tweak. It is a fundamental narrowing of criminal liability, and it changes the analysis in several places where the article relies on the old formulation. The suggestion that search history showing repeated searches for a victim's name and address could support a Section 24 cyberstalking charge needs revisiting, since cyberstalking premised on annoyance or harassment, without more, sits outside the current wording. Likewise, the article's discussion of online defamation notes that Section 24 makes it an offence to knowingly send false material intending to cause annoyance, inconvenience, danger or injury. That is no longer the test. A prosecutor relying on the amended section must now show that the false statement was sent for the purpose of causing a breakdown of law and order or a threat to life, a considerably higher and more specific threshold than the old catalogue of subjective harms.
For defence counsel, this matters immediately. Any charge sheet or ongoing prosecution still framed in the language of grossly offensive, indecent or menacing content, or annoyance and insult, is charging conduct against a provision that Parliament has already replaced. Counsel should scrutinise the date of the offence alleged and the version of Section 24 actually in force at that time, since the amendment is not retroactive and older conduct may still fall to be assessed under the repealed text.
A note for practitioners and commentators generally
The lesson here is a broader one for anyone writing on Nigerian cyber law at the moment. The 2024 amendment to the Cybercrimes Act made several targeted changes beyond Section 24, and commentary drafted before August 2024, or drafted afterward but relying on older secondary sources, can easily reproduce provisions that have since been repealed. Given how often Section 24 features in both civil advocacy and criminal defence work, it is worth every practitioner confirming they are working from the amended text before relying on it in a brief, an article, or advice to a client.
This note is offered in the spirit of collegial correction, and with appreciation for the broader contribution the original article makes to an underdeveloped area of Nigerian legal writing.
