Nigerian Woman Faces Jail Time For Facebook Review Of Tomato Sauce

Nigeria doesn’t exactly have a stellar reputation when it comes to respecting the speech rights of its own citizens, nor the rights of platforms that its citizens use. By way of examples, there was the time that the country suspended Twitter for several months for the crime of taking down a tweet from its president that sure sounded like a threat of genocide. The country has also been known to abuse its cybercrime laws to wage legal battles with citizens that have dared to criticize the government.

But I will admit that even with that reputation in place, I’m a bit at a loss as to why the country decided to arrest and charge a woman for violating those same laws because she wrote an unkind review of a can of tomato puree on Facebook.

A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.

Chioma Okoli, a 39-year-old entrepreneur from Lagos, is being prosecuted and sued in civil court for allegedly breaching the country’s cybercrime laws, in a case that has gripped the West African nation and sparked protests by locals who believe she is being persecuted for exercising her right to free speech.

By now you’re wondering what actually happened here. Well, Okoli got on Facebook after having tried a can of Nagiko Tomato Mix, made by local Nigerian company Erisco Foods. Her initial post essentially complained about it being too sugary. So pretty standard fair for a review-type post on Facebook. When she started getting some mixed replies, some of them told her to stop trying to ruin the company and just buy something else, with one such message supposedly coming from a relative of the company’s ownership. To that, she replied:

Okoli responded: “Help me advise your brother to stop ki***ing people with his product, yesterday was my first time of using and it’s pure sugar.”

By the way, you can see all of this laid out by Erisco Foods itself on its own Facebook page. The company also claims that she exchanged messages with others talking about how she wanted to trash the product online so that nobody would buy it and that sort of thing. Whatever the truth about that situation is, this all stems from a poor review of a product posted online, which is the kind of speech countries with free speech laws typically protect.

In Okoli’s case, she was arrested shortly after those posts.

According to the police, Okoli was charged with “instigating Erisco Foods Limited, knowing the said information to be false under Section 24 (1) (B) of Nigeria’s Cyber Crime Prohibition Act.” If found guilty, she could face up to three years in jail or a fine of 7 million naira (around $5,000), or both.

Okoli was separately charged with conspiring with two other individuals “with the intention of instigating people against Erisco Foods Limited,” which the charge sheet noted was punishable under Section 27(1)(B) of the same act. She risks a seven-year sentence if convicted of this charge.

Okoli is pregnant and was placed in a cell during her arrest that had water leaking into it, by her account. She was also forced to apologize to Erisco Foods as part of her bond release, which she then publicly stated was done under duress and refused to apologize once out of holding. Erisco Foods, for its part, has said it didn’t instigate the arrest — note: I find this hard to believe — and that it was suing in civil court because of how much harm Okoli’s post did to its total business.

The Lagos-based food company said it also “suffered the loss of multiple credit lines” and had therefore filed a civil lawsuit against Okoli that sought 5 billion naira (more than $3 million) in damages. This case is due to be heard on May 20, her lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, told CNN.

It was one person’s review of a can of tomato puree. If a single review really could result in the destruction of multiple credit lines and millions of dollars of harm, I would like the company to please show me any evidence of that, because I don’t believe that either. And the claim that the company is purusing the civil case because of the harm that Okoli did to its reputation sure looks silly considering the harm that the company is doing to its reputation by going after Okoli, in true Streisand Effect.

“Harassment and intimidation of Chioma Okoli must end now,” Amnesty International Nigeria said earlier this month, as Nigerians began crowdfunding online to support her legal fees.

Okoli’s case has sparked protests at Erisco’s Lagos facility as many on social media called for a boycott of its products. The company’s founder, Eric Umeofia, refused to budge, however, saying in a recent documentary on the local Arise Television channel that he won’t drop the lawsuit against Okoli and that he would “rather die than allow someone to tarnish my image I worked 40 years to grow.”

Okoli is also countersuing both Erisco Foods and the police, arguing for a violation of her speech rights.

Now, those speech rights aren’t the same as exist in America, of course, but if a country doesn’t even allow for an online review of a can of tomato puree, then what actual speech rights does the company have anyway?