It was a tumultuous moment of joy for the well-wishers of Agba Jalingo as a Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday, July 8 discharged and acquitted the Nigerian publisher of Cybercrime on the grounds that the prosecution had failed to prove its case.
Jalingo who is a popular social critic, activist and journalist and publisher of an online newspaper, CrossRiverWatch, was prosecuted by the Nigeria police over a Facebook post he made on 30 June 2022. The offences were said to contravene section 24(1)b of the Cybercrimes (prohibition, prevention, etc) Act 2015.
Jalingo was arrested in August 2022 by the Cross Rivers authorities and in December 2022 of the same year he was charged to court over the June 2022 CrossRiverWatch article which he had earlier published on the Facebook, alleging that Elizabeth Alami Frank Ayade, sister-in-law to Cross River State Governor Ben Ayade, paid someone to take a law school exam for her.
Jalingo had been having a running battle with the Cross River State authorities and was previously arrested in August 2019 when he was detained for nearly six months over his reporting on corruption allegations involving Ayade became a high-profile case before he was picked up by the police.
In 2021, the ECOWAS Court of Justice, a West African regional court, ordered the Nigerian government should compensate Jalingo for his prolonged detention and mistreatment in custody. Africa Health Report gathered that Jalingo had not yet received the compensation pursuant to the judgement.
