Is Wearing "Tinubu Must Go" on a T-Shirt a Crime in Nigeria?

A slogan on cotton has put five men in a Nigerian courtroom, and with a general election months away, the case raises a plain question about how far political expression can go.

Borno State Police arrested and arraigned five men in Maiduguri for allegedly printing and wearing T-shirts bearing the words "Tinubu Must Go."

According to the charge sheet, the incident happened on 25 September near the West End Roundabout. The defendants are Baba Aji Gremami, Mustapha Abba Yemen, Abbacha Mohammed Ali, Adam Umar Gubio and Abdulhamid Mohammed, aged between 21 and 44.

The charges are not about the slogan as such. The police charged them with criminal conspiracy, inciting disturbance, disturbance of public peace and thuggery, under sections 60, 78, 79 and 392 of the Borno State Penal Code.

The charge alleges they conspired to print T-shirts with the inscription with the intent to cause a breach of public peace in the West End community. All five pleaded not guilty. The court fixed 26 October for the substantive trial.

The police insist this is not a case about shirts. After public criticism, the command's spokesman said the men were arrested on patrol near West End Roundabout, and that officers recovered suspected Indian hemp, tablets, a shisha pot, scissors and two T-shirts bearing the slogan.

Police stressed that the men are not being persecuted for their political views. Those allegations are untested in court, and the reports do not say the drugs are part of the formal charges.

Critics see it differently. Amnesty International said wearing a T-shirt expressing political opposition is not a crime, and called for the men's release and for the charges to be dropped. The African Democratic Congress rejected the police account and said the gathering was peaceful and conducted under security protection, with participants wearing the T-shirts.

One outlet reported claims that a prominent state politician orchestrated the arrests, which the publication said it could not independently verify.

The wider picture matters for the legal question. The movement seeks to mobilize Nigerians ahead of the January 2027 presidential election, and two weeks after the Borno arrests, police in Kano blocked access to a venue where its members planned to meet, citing public safety. Amnesty's Nigeria director called this an alarming trend of suppressing freedom of association and expression.

So is it an offence? None of the reports I found cites a law that bans such a slogan. Nigeria's constitution protects freedom of expression in Section 39, though that right is subject to laws on public order. The real test in Maiduguri will be whether the prosecution can show disturbance, conspiracy or thuggery, not just a message printed on a shirt.

The trial will matter beyond Borno. If the charges fail, it will confirm that peaceful slogans cannot be policed as crimes. If they stand, they will show how general public-order provisions can be applied to political expression in an election season.

Mustapha Bature Sallama
Medical/Science communicator, Private Investigator, Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Analysis,United States Institute of Peace (USIP), [email protected] +233555275880

Sources
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