By Usman Babaji

ON a hot February afternoon in 2023, Haruna Mohammed Salisu found himself shoved into a police van. Moments earlier, the 34-year-old publisher of WikkiTimes — a small investigative news outlet in Bauchi State — had been interviewing voters during the presidential election. Now he was under arrest, accused of “inciting public disturbance”. As armed officers hauled him away, Salisu realised this was the price one pays for telling uncomfortable truths in today’s Nigeria. WikkiTimes states that the arrest was politically motivated and believes the order may have come from the state governor. 

Hounded, beaten and thrown into jail for five days, Salisu was later released on bail. What is the reported offense? Covering a protest by local women who were expressing grievances against the state government. “They wanted to silence me forever,” Salisu recalled. “But surrendering to a bully means they could silence all of us– and that is very dangerous,” he’d added.

According to Salisu, during his detention he was held in a crowded cell and his phone was confiscated by police despite what he said was a standing court order for its return. This was one in a broader pattern of intimidation and pressure faced by WikkiTimes and its journalists.

Founded in 2018 to cover Northern Nigeria’s underreported regions, WikkiTimes has become a leading watchdog outlet, exposing corruption, abuse of power, and injustice in areas often ignored by mainstream media.

But this commitment to truth has come at a high cost. In recent times, WikkiTimes and its staff have faced an onslaught of retaliation. From strategic lawsuits and arrests to cyberattacks, harassment, and threats—all seemingly coordinated to muzzle the news platform.

“It has become a pattern now; some form of punishment follows every major story we publish,” Salisu explained.

The son of Bauchi State governor once publicly vowed “eternal enmity against me for a story that was yet to be published. And his father gave me the same treatment, because when I was interviewing the women, they arrested me, and later charged me to court for a story that was not yet published,” Salisu recounted.

Family members of a former WikkiTimes editor, Yakubu Mohammed, have received anonymous threats after WikkiTimes published a story alleging links between illicit mining operations and terrorism financing in Niger State. The message is clear: journalism that confronts the mighty is being treated as a crime in parts of Nigeria. 

Threats, intimidation and harassment

Efforts to intimidate WikkiTimes journalists have often taken a deeply personal turn. In one recent report, the outlet uncovered alleged terrorism funding and illegal gold mining  in Niger State, some of those named responded with outrage and legal threats, including a N10 billion defamation lawsuit against WikkiTimes, widely seen as an attempt to suppress the reporting. Such lawsuits, often viewed as strategic efforts to silence critical journalism, have become increasingly common.

Another investigation detailed how a Saudi-funded charitable hospital in Bauchi was extorting patients and evading taxes in violation of its non-profit mandate. The charity responded by dragging the outlet to court and demanding N1 billion in damages.

In early 2022, after WikkiTimes published an exposé on a N1 billion model school project that never materialised in Bauchi, former House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara responded with a N2 billion libel suit. The lawsuit claimed that WikkiTimes defamed him by reporting that funds allocated for a school in his constituency had been misappropriated. WikkiTimes has stood by its reporting, and the case remains ongoing in court.

The Media Foundation for West Africa condemned Dogara’s action as a “vexatious legal assault” aimed at intimidating the press.

Since 2020, WikkiTimes has faced at least nine lawsuits described by media rights advocates as SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation), legal actions intended to silence public interest reporting. The publisher argued that these cases are not really meant to be won in court – they are intended to drown the young outlet in paperwork, legal fees and stress.

“As a small platform, it is difficult to hire lawyers, fund several trips by our reporters to attend court hearings”, Salisu stated. Kamal Idris, a reporter who was a co-defendant in the Saudi-funded charity hospital case, shares the same views.

“The court cases were an eye-opener… but draining. We don’t have the resources that politicians or companies have”, Idris said, adding, “each lawsuit, even if frivolous, saps time and money that could be spent on journalism.”

Physical intimidation has often accompanied legal harassment. In June 2023, after WikkiTimes reported on threatening messages received by opposition politician Hussaini Musa Gwaba—who died under mysterious circumstances—the outlet faced backlash from Bauchi federal lawmaker Yakubu Shehu Abdullahi, who accused the publication of “cyberstalking” in a police petition following the report’s mention of his alleged dissatisfaction with Gwaba’s political appointment.

Police officers visited the office in Bauchi and detained publisher Salisu and reporter Idris for 48 hours.

“Our detention was a nightmare,” Kamal recalled. “We were tortured from the moment we were put in the cell. The cell was filthy, and we had to sleep and urinate in the same place. There were only two dirty buckets for us. The air was rank. By the time we got out, I couldn’t focus on work for days because of the trauma.”

During those two days behind bars, the journalists said they were beaten and threatened by inmates – an action they believe was pre-planned. “They put us in with deadly thugs and even terrorists,” Salisu said, describing the cell in Bauchi’s State Criminal Investigation Department (CID), where they were held. Eventually, both were charged under Nigeria’s Cybercrime law, referencing the article on Gwaba’s death. The court later dismissed the case.

The climate of hostility forced the then WikkiTimes editor, Yakubu Mohammed, to flee Bauchi in 2023. While Salisu was iin detention after the election-day arrest, word reached Yakubu that authorities were planning to arrest him next. The next morning, Yakubu packed up and quietly left Bauchi for his own safety.

“Your identity is known by all the local actors you report on,” Salisu explains of the risks inherent in subnational journalism. “It’s easy for them to profile you and trace your location. Very few of us do this kind of work where we operate, so we could easily be profiled and targeted.”

In Yakubu’s case, relocation was the only way to avoid becoming the next target. Other WikkiTimes reporters have also periodically gone into hiding or moved residences after receiving warnings that “the big men are after you.”

SLAPP and legal warfare against the outlet

In late 2022, Abdullahi “Baba Iyali” Abdulkadir, a federal lawmaker from Bauchi, filed a law suit against  WikkiTime  not for its original reporting, but for republishing an investigative story from a partner outlet. The report alleged that Abdulkadir was linked to a questionable road construction contract. In response, the lawmaker sued, claiming the story had “tarnished his image” among constituents and demanded damages along with an injunction to prevent further distribution.

In April 2024, WikkiTimes published a story by journalist Yawale Adamu alleging that  Mansur Manu Soro, a House of Reps member from Darazo/Ganjuwa, Bauchi State, had colluded with a local contractor to divert millions of naira from constituency projects. This led to a criminal complaints filed for defamation and “injurious falsehood” against WikkiTimes. By September 2024, a Bauchi magistrate issued a bench warrant to Salisu who was outside the country at the time pursuing postgraduate studies.

The journalist Adamu was brought before the court to face charges that carry a potential sentence of up to five years in prison.  “My only weapon was the truth, backed by evidence. But in Nigeria, the truth is dangerous,” Adamu said.

Soro himself has stayed mostly silent on the allegations, despite CPJ’s calls for the charges to be dropped. Meanwhile, he lodged a civil suit demanding that WikkiTimes retract the story, apologise publicly, and pay about N2.5 million in damages and legal fees.

In Kano State, a businessman named Surajo Marshal went to a magistrate court after a WikkiTimes article exposed irregularities in a multi-million naira school construction project he handled.

In an unusual move, the court issued a criminal summons against WikkiTimes over the report.  Publisher Salisu described the actionas irregular because the outlet had not been formally served any court documents. The report had detailed how six companies linked to Marshal allegedly constructed substandard classrooms.  Salius believes the case, filed ex parte without WikkiTimes knowledge at first, was clearly intended to pressure the outlet into silence.

A digital war on truth

When legal and physical intimidation have failed, WikkiTimes adversaries have turned to digital attacks. The outlet has weathered waves of cyberattacks and online harassment, often timed to coincide with its most sensitive investigations. In April 2025, WikkiTimes website suffered  400 coordinated cyberattacks  in a 48-hour period.

The deluge of malicious traffic and hacking attempts repeatedly knocked the site offline, disrupted publication schedules, and temporarily cut off access for readers. “Pages wouldn’t load, our admin panel was locked out, and we saw traffic from bots we couldn’t trace,” recalled Ibrahim Salisu, the outlet’s technical support lead, who worked around the clock to restore the site. “It felt like someone was intentionally trying to silence us or wear us down digitally,” he explained.  What disturbed him most was the persistence of the April attack. “It wasn’t just a random spike – it was calculated, coming at us from different directions.”

This was not the first incident. In April 2023, hackers breached WikkiTimes backend and wiped its story database, erasing several published articles before the site could be restored from backups. And in November 2022, the outlet’s Facebook page – which had tens of thousands of followers – was suddenly taken down by Facebook shortly after it published an investigation into cover-up involving a former Bauchi Police Commissioner.

The report alleged that the commissioner helped shield the state’s ex-Information Commissioner from justice after a fatal bar shooting. Days after publishing the story, WikkiTimes’ Facebook page vanished. The team believes the takedown may have resulted from coordinated mass reporting by supporters of those named in the story, though Facebook did not provide a specific reason.

Beyond direct cyberattacks, WikkiTimes has been hit by disinformation campaigns aimed at discrediting its work. In one case, a doctored video circulated on WhatsApp and Twitter, accusing WikkiTimes of receiving foreign funding to destabilise northern Nigeria’s stability and elites. The video – a montage of spliced clips with a fake voiceover – suggested the outlet was part of an international plot against the north, playing on popular conspiracy tropes. “It was absurd, but some people believed it,” says Salisu, noting that the disinformation emerged soon after WikkiTimes published a series of articles on high-profile corruption in northern states. Online trolls have also hounded the outlet’s reporters on social media, bombarding them with slurs and accusations of being “traitors” or “paid agents” whenever a new investigation is published. These coordinated smear efforts seek to erode public trust in the outlet’s reporting.

All of these digital assaults from hacking to propaganda reflect a growing playbook of censorship in the digital age. As Ibrahim – the outlet tech support observes:  “These kinds of attacks are becoming more common, especially against media organisations that speak truth to power.”

For WikkiTimes, defending against cyber warfare has now become as important as digging for documents or cultivating whistleblowers. “We expected anger and maybe a lawsuit or two,” says Haruna Salisu of the fallout from their stories. “We didn’t expect them to try to delete our journalism from the internet or to poison the information space with lies about us. It’s a different level of threat.”

 Solidarity and the struggle for press freedom

WikkiTimes’ plight has not gone unnoticed. Press freedom advocates in Nigeria and abroad have rallied, in cash and kind, to support the outlet. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Media Rights Agenda (MRA), the International Press Centre (IPC), the Media Defence Uk, The Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism, Forbidden Stories, Center for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), The Wole Soyinka Center and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and many others have either issued statements or bankrolled WikkiTimes to confront its SLAPP lawsuits. They have also condemned the arrests, lawsuits and cyberattacks against WikkiTimes. These voices explain that an attack on one journalist or outlet is seen as an attack on the broader media and the public’s right to know.

Yet beyond public statements and legal advocacy support, the outlet’s staff continue to operate under tremendous pressure, often looking over their shoulders. Some have taken self-defence training; others vary their daily routes or use secure communications to avoid surveillance. “We have changed office locations more than three times within two years to avoid being tracked and intimidated by police and other powerful forces. That has come at a heavy cost on WikkiTimes”, Editor Aminu Adamu has said.

WikkiTimes’ modest revenues (largely from grants and donations) are being drained by legal fees and cybersecurity costs. “Every lawsuit means money for lawyers instead of reporting. Every cyberattack means money for IT security instead of field investigations,” the publisher said, describing how resources are diverted just to keep the outlet afloat and safe.

Nigeria’s broader climate for journalism only compounds the problem. In 2024, Nigeria ranked 112th out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, slipping to 122nd in 2025 amid rising threats to independent media and increased editorial interference

Media experts argue that the struggle of WikkiTimes is emblematic of a larger battle for press freedom in Nigeria. Hamid Adamu Muhammad, a mass communication scholar at North Eastern University, Gombe, says the pattern of harassing journalists for exposing the truth is as uncivilised as it is dangerous. “It is the responsibility of journalists to expose what organisations and governments are doing that is not right,” he said.

Global press freedom monitors echo that sentiment. They point out that impunity for crimes against journalists, gender-based online attacks, and targeted digital surveillance are three of the most pressing threats to free journalism today – and that violence is the most extreme form of censorship. In other words, when telling the truth leads to one being beaten, jailed or financially ruined, it’s not just a personal tragedy but a society-wide alarm.

“Journalism can only be exercised freely when those who carry out this work are not victims of threats or physical, mental or moral attacks or other acts of harassment,” it says.

Back in Bauchi, the WikkiTimes team soldiers on. They have learned to be resourceful and resilient – migrating servers when they come under attack, backing up content in multiple locations, fighting their battles in court during the day and chasing stories by night. Their determination has yielded small victories: public interest in their work is growing, and some corrupt schemes they exposed have been halted by embarrassed authorities. Each win, however minor, bolsters their resolve.

“We owe it to our people to keep going. If we don’t speak for our people, who will? We can’t let these guys get away with impunity,” Haruna Salisu declares.

This report republished from WikkiTimes is produced by WikkiTimes in collaboration with the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) as part of a project documenting issues focused on press freedom in Nigeria.