By Sule Yusuf
In Nigeria, judicial processes, whether for real or imagined crimes, are increasingly migrating from the solemn halls of the law courts to the noisy pages of newspapers, the sensational glare of television studios and most scarily, the ever toxic streets of social media. In these spaces, everyone armed with a smartphone appropriates to themselves the robe of a judge, the wig of a senior advocate, and the moral authority of an appellate court, often on issues they know next to nothing about. In this alternate judicial system, evidence is optional or immaterial; context is a nuisance and fair hearing an inconvenience.
This growing culture of media trial has become one of the most corrosive afflictions of our public life. It thrives on outrage, feeds on half truths, and survives on the attention economy where speed trumps accuracy and sensation replaces substance. Truth, if it shows up at all, usually arrives late and breathless, long after reputations have been lynched and livelihoods wrecked.
Such was the case recently with Mustapha Ibrahim Yakubu, a law abiding businessman and licensed Bureau de Change operator, who woke up one morning to discover that he had been tried, convicted, and sentenced, not by any court of competent jurisdiction, but by a media court presided over by Omoyele Sowore. The courtroom was virtual, the gavel was digital, and the judgment was delivered via his online platform with a long established reputation for sensationalism masquerading as investigative journalism.
Without so much as a knock on his door or a request for his side of the story, Mustapha was summarily branded a terrorism financier. The gravity of such an allegation cannot be overstated. Terrorism financing is not a traffic offence. It is one of the most damaging accusations imaginable, the kind that stains a man’s name, freezes his business relationships, and places him permanently under public suspicion. Yet this was dispensed with the casual recklessness of a click hungry headline.
What was the evidence marshalled against this businessman? Nothing! The online medium’s entire case rested on the claims of a retired army general whose canary songs have long lost their tune. This is a man whose empty notes no longer inspire confidence, whose toneless music has been dismissed in many quarters as the ramblings of someone perpetually courting relevance. Yet, on the strength of this single broken voice, Mustapha was condemned.
Most disturbing, is the fact that not one agency, neither the accuser nor the outlet that fired the first shot, thought it necessary to carry out even the most basic due diligence. Not one phone call or email. No request for clarification or any attempt to hear from the accused. As is usually the case with media trials, guilt was presumed, innocence was an afterthought, and the right to fair hearing was quietly escorted out of the room.
For context, it is important to examine the specific allegations that the online medium paraded as damning proof. The first charge was that Mustapha operates 39 bank accounts. This, we were told, was a red flag, prima facie evidence of terrorism financing. The second so called smoking gun was that he transferred billions of naira to a company belonging to a colleague, Murtala Jega, another Bureau de Change operator who had himself been accused of terror financing.
On the basis of these two claims, the medium effectively pronounced Mustapha a terrorism financier. No need for trial, interrogation or further explanations. Just a conclusion neatly wrapped for a public who buried their teeth into it without thought or restraints.
Going by this curious logic, anyone who operates multiple bank accounts and conducts business with fellow operators in the same industry automatically qualifies as a terrorist or, at best, a terrorist sympathiser. It is a logic so lazy that it collapses under the slightest scrutiny. Yet it was presented with the confidence of settled law.
What the online medium in question did not care to explain, perhaps because explanation would have ruined the headline, is that it is standard practice for licensed Bureau de Change operators in Nigeria to maintain multiple bank accounts. This is not a criminal workaround; it is a commercial necessity imposed by banking regulations that cap transaction limits. To function efficiently, BDC operators spread their operations across several accounts, often in multiple banks. This is industry reality, not clandestine wizardry.
Nor did the medium bother to investigate the nature or purpose of the transactions between Mustapha and his colleague. In a sector where operators routinely exchange funds to meet liquidity needs, settle obligations, or complete legitimate forex transactions, such transfers are neither unusual nor inherently suspicious. But context, again, is the enemy of sensationalism.
Sadly, this shoot first ask questions later approach—whether by overzealous law enforcement or irresponsible media actors, is fast becoming a defining feature of criminal justice administration in Nigeria. The line between investigation and persecution is increasingly blurred. Accusation has become punishment.
Sowore is no stranger to this pattern. His platform has repeatedly shown a troubling willingness to publish allegations first and worry about facts later. The collateral damage is often borne by individuals who lack the resources or platforms to immediately push back. It is rather disheartening because, for someone who has himself suffered from the overzealousness of media trial, one would have thought the medium he publishes would adapt the time tested practice of benefits of doubt.
Sadly, he is not alone in this Gestapo style enforcement. Recently, a similar tragedy unfolded when three Nigerians namely: Umar Ibrahim, Alhaji Bello Rabiu, and Jaja Sarki Bamo who were returning to the country were summarily accused of being members of a terrorist organisation. They were detained for months under harsh conditions, their lives suspended on the strength of suspicion. Eventually, after it emerged that their detention was unjustified for lack of evidence, they were released, discharged, and acquitted. Reports even suggested that the DSS paid a N3 million compensation for holding them unlawfully. But, is there any amount of compensation that can fully restore lost time, damaged reputations, or the psychological scars of wrongful incarceration?
These cases expose a dangerous pattern: the ease with which accusations are made, amplified, and weaponised, and the difficulty of undoing their consequences once the truth finally emerges.
I believe it is in the interest of justice, and indeed of responsible journalism, to begin demanding consequences for reckless publishing. Freedom of the press is not freedom from responsibility. The journalist’s ethos of objectivity, balance, fairness, and verification exists precisely to prevent this kind of damage.
Indeed, Nigeria cannot build a credible justice system where accusations are litigated on timelines and verdicts are delivered by trending hashtags. Courts must remain courts. Journalists must remain journalists. And citizens, no matter how unfashionable they may be, must retain the right to be heard before they are condemned.
Until we draw that line firmly, the media court will continue to thrive, dispensing instant justice that satisfies the mob while slowly poisoning the country with a reputation that reads like a rap-sheet.
•Yusuf writes from Abuja.
