Investigations into TikTok prison streams, deepfake scams and INEC spoofing presented as evidence of growing digital accountability gap in Nigeria
Participants in a multi-stakeholder dialogue on online safety and platform accountability held in Abuja on Wednesday called for stricter scrutiny of tech platforms operating in Nigeria, warning that the growing influence of digital companies over what Nigerians watch, share and believe has created an accountability gap that neither platforms nor regulators are adequately addressing.
The dialogue, convened by the Center for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) at Bon Hotel Octagon, Abuja, brought together newsroom leaders, investigative journalists, regulators, civil society actors and other stakeholders to examine Nigeria’s response to emerging digital harms, while safeguarding freedom of expression.
Setting the tone for the dialogue, Dapo Olorunyomi, CEO of CJID, said the consequent concentration of power has increasingly shifted beyond governments to private technology companies whose platforms now influence communication, commerce, politics and access to information in Nigeria and around the world.
He said these platforms determine what becomes visible, what disappears and what spreads widely, while making important decisions through algorithms that are often difficult for citizens and regulators to examine.
“They write rules for participation, enforce those rules, manage our nations, and increasingly make important decisions through algorithms that most citizens cannot see,” Olorunyomi said.
He warned that the growing influence of technology companies requires a rethinking of the traditional understanding of accountability, which has largely focused on governments and public institutions, and that a digital environment without meaningful accountability could expose citizens to fraud, exploitation, manipulation and privacy violations.
However, he warned that the push for greater platform accountability must be balanced against the risk of regulations being weaponized to enable surveillance, censorship and restrictions on civic freedoms.
“Our task cannot be simply one or the other. The more difficult question is how societies create institutions capable of limiting power without unnecessarily restricting freedom,” Olorunyomi said.
CJID Executive Director Akintunde Babatunde said the growing influence of technology platforms had created a new form of digital citizenship, with Nigerians increasingly subject to decisions made by companies in which they have no role in choosing or governing.
“People have effectively become citizens of a digital world governed by platforms whose owners they never chose,” Babatunde said.
Research Provides Evidence Behind Accountability Concerns
To ground the dialogue in documented evidence, four investigative journalists supported by the CJID Platform Accountability Fellowship presented research findings that illustrated how digital platforms can create or amplify real-world harms.
This reporter presented the findings of an investigation jointly published by Saturday Tribune and Premium Times, exposing how Elijah Oyebode, a convicted murderer serving a death sentence by hanging at the Ibara Custody Centre, Abeokuta, operated TikTok Live sessions from inside his condemned cell, received monetary gifts from thousands of viewers and described a facility where more than 2,000 smartphones circulate among approximately 1,000 inmates.
The investigation prompted a formal response from the Nigerian Correctional Service within five days of publication, resulting in the dismissal of the officer in charge of the facility, the suspension of two senior officers, the seizure of the contraband device, and the transfer of the inmate to another facility under heightened security.
Premium Times’ Abubakar Abdulrasheed presented findings on how scammers are exploiting TikTok’s advertising system using deepfakes and AI-generated content to defraud Nigerians on a large scale.
Toheeb Babalola exposed a US-based fraudulent website posing as the Independent National Electoral Commission to collect personal data of Africans without consent. Simbiat Bakare’s investigation examined how Telegram’s regulatory failures and the spread of misinformation are fueling prostitution rings in Nigeria.
Together, the four investigations illustrated the central concern of the dialogue: that online harms are not simply virtual problems but produce documented and measurable consequences for individuals, communities and institutions.
Platforms ignore journalists – Editor in Chief
During a panel session moderated by Tracy Keshi, project director of CJID’s Technology Justice and Digital Governance program, Premium Times editor-in-chief Idris Akinbajo said journalists investigating technology companies routinely find it difficult to obtain information from both platforms and regulators, even when approaching them with documented evidence.
“Access to information, both by the platforms themselves and by Nigerian regulators, and improving the knowledge of journalists reporting on technology and AI issues, are the key issues that need to be addressed,” Akinbajo said.
He urged journalists to think beyond publication when investigating digital harms and to maintain engagement with regulators, civil society and relevant institutions until identified issues are addressed. “Until the issue is resolved, the news cycle around that issue should not stop,” he said.
Miriam Kadiri, representing the National Human Rights Commission, said online violations should increasingly be treated as human rights issues requiring a rapid and proactive institutional response. He noted that the commission’s enforcement and legal services department maintains a unit that monitors digital rights violations and can take on cases even without a formal complaint, often working in collaboration with civil society organizations and other regulatory bodies.
However, he acknowledged that digital rights remain an evolving area in which regulators, lawyers and citizens are still developing a deeper understanding.
Jessica Eni, representing Techsocietal, argued that platforms should be held responsible not only for the content that users post, but also for the systems through which harmful content is created, distributed, amplified and reported. It said platforms should conduct proper risk assessments before introducing new features and provide meaningful solutions when users report breaches.
It expressed particular concern about the inability of automated moderation systems to understand Nigerian languages, slang and cultural contexts, and warned that harmful content easily recognizable to Nigerian users may escape platform moderation entirely.
“AI moderators are not trained to understand our language. They are not trained to understand our context,” Eni said.
Filani Funso, data protection officer at the Nigerian Data Protection Commission, said Nigerians have enforceable rights over their personal information and can lodge complaints with the commission when those rights are violated. However, he acknowledged that public awareness of those rights remains inadequate despite sustained outreach efforts.
“One of the main challenges is that awareness is still not enough,” said Funso.
Prince Godwin, an IT specialist at the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, said law enforcement in the digital economy is further complicated when companies operate through complex cross-border structures spanning multiple countries, limiting the reach of the Nigerian regulatory authority.
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