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Towards the recognition of internet access as a human right in Nigeria : A theoretical and legal perspective
Lawal, Temitope Ola, Kunle Chuma-Okoro, Helen
Lawal, Temitope
Ola, Kunle
Chuma-Okoro, Helen
Abstract
The Internet has become a ubiquitous and essential aspect of daily life, facilitating seamless communication and access to information. Despite its significance, many countries, including Nigeria, do not formally recognise internet access as a human right, although there is growing global support for considering internet access as integral to the enjoyment of other rights, such as freedom of expression. Meanwhile, internet shutdowns have become a common method of restricting access, significantly undermining citizens’ ability to freely access, disseminate, and impart information. Against this backdrop, this article employs human rights theory, with a focus on positive and negative rights, alongside networked society theory, to argue that the Nigerian state has both a legal and moral obligation to recognise and protect internet access as a human right. Through these theoretical frameworks, it examines how two recent judgments by the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice – Amnesty International Togo & Ors v The Togolese Republic and SERAP v FRN – along with relevant provisions of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 and the Universal Access and Service Regulations 2007, provide a basis for advancing the recognition of internet access as a human right in Nigeria.
Keywords
internet access, human rights, Nigeria
Date
2025
Type
Journal article
Journal
Book
Volume
Issue
Page Range
1-21
Article Number
ACU Department
Thomas More Law School
Faculty of Law and Business
Faculty of Law and Business
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
License
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
File Access
Open
Notes
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.