Change Makers Given your experience and expertise in digital rights work in Africa, CIPESA invites you to participate as an interviewee by responding to the following set of questions. What motivated you to become an advocate for Internet freedom in Africa, and how did you get started? My involvement in Internet freedom advocacy dates back to 2001, when my organization, Media Rights Agenda, partnered with Internews Network and the Centre for Democracy and Technology (CDT), to implement a project called the Global Internet Policy Initiative (GIPI). My organization was in charge of implementing the Nigerian component of the project, which I oversaw along with Eric Johnson, then Managing Director of Internews Europe. The Internet was really in its infancy globally at that time, but more so in Nigeria, which had no policy or regulatory framework to address the issue. However, conversations were being initiated within government to regulate the emerging sector, and our involvement was aimed at engaging with policy-makers within the Executive and the Legislature around the issue of Internet regulation, which also sought to organize the private sector, particularly the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and well as associations in the computer and other digital technology environment to participate in the policy debates to ensure that critical voices were heard in policy formulation processes. These efforts were uncoordinated and were not being implemented under any clear policy framework. Some of the draft laws or instruments duplicated each other in different respects, while many of them fell below international standards and practices on Internet regulation and violated established human rights norms, including the right to freedom of expression and privacy. There were also threats from senior government officials to control social media in light of the increasing and widespread use of social media platforms to mobilize citizens around issues of public interest, including against certain government policies and actions. Given these threats to human rights online and the online environment and digital communication in general, it became imperative for me to re-engage the issues within my broader interests in the rights to freedom of expression, media freedom, and access to information. However, a little over a decade later, I developed a renewed interest in Internet policy advocacy because of more aggressive efforts by the Nigerian Government to regulate the Internet in a manner that threatened human rights online, particularly the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. These efforts manifested in the form of several draft laws and draft regulations pending before different legislative and executive bodies, all aimed at regulating various aspects of the Internet and its use. These included the Regulation of Telecommunication Facilities to Support Investigations and for Other Matters Connected Therewith, Electronic Commerce (Provision of Legal Recognition) Bill, Electronic Transfer of Funds Crimes Bill; Cyber-security Bill, Interception and Monitoring Bill, draft Lawful Interception of Communications Regulations, and, the Cybercrime Bill. 12 A CIPESA Series