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Nigerians reject Hate Speech, anti-Social Media Bills

Published

5 years ago

February 4, 2020

Track News

TRACKING____Nigerians, yesterday, vehemently opposed the Internet Falsehood Manipulation Bill and the Bill seeking to establish National Commission for Prohibition of Hate Speeches.

Those who expressed this opposition also advised the sponsors of the Bills, Senators Sani Musa (APC, Niger East) and Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi (APC, Niger North), to withdraw the bills from the Senate in the interest of the country’s democracy.

Signs of outright rejection of the bills were made manifest at the Town Hall meeting organised on the proposed legislations by African Independent Television (AIT) in Abuja.

After presentation of the bills by the sponsors, the participants went into technical session called roundtable session, where only one out of eight panelists supported them.

The other panelists from the former Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Professor Chidi Odinkalu to the Chief Executive Officer, Connected Development (CODE), Mr Hamzat Lawal, all kicked against the two bills for allegedly being tailored at gagging freedom of press and speech as enshrined in section 39 of the 1999 Constitution.

Odinkalu, in his opposition to the bills, said that neither the Anti-social media bill nor the Hate Speech bill would address the pervasive poverty and increasing wave of insecurity in the land.

According to him, it was ironic that the sponsors of the bills are from Niger State, where innocent lives were being lost on daily basis to uncontrolled attacks from armed bandits without any bill in that direction.

“Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, who sponsored the Hate Speech bill spent 20 minutes on presentation without mentioning a provision while Senator Mohammed Sani Musa laboured to convince us that the anti-social bill is not meant to stifle freedom of speech which by all intents and purposes , is the case.

“Nigerians want bills that will facilitate improvement of their wellbeing and security of their lives and property.

“Extant laws abound on what the two bills are aiming at. What is the work of the National Orientation Agency( NOA) , National Human Rights Commission etc , that will warrant establishment of National Commission for Prohibition of Hate Speech ?,” he asked.

In his own submission, Hamzat Lawal raised two critical questions on who to decide hate speech or fake news. He said rather than wasting time and tax payers’ money on such bills, they should be discarded by the sponsors and if they refused, rejected by the Senate.

However, opposition to the bills deteriorated when the audience were made to join the panelists in the discussion in form of questions and answers as virtually all who contributed rejected the bills.

The National President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Chris Iziguzo, in his contribution, said the two bills were anti-people, anti-freedom of speech and against the media and must be prevented from seeing the light of the day.

Others like Deji Adeyanju of Concerned Nigerians Group and Barrister Daniel Makido, also kicked against the bills during the questions and answers session.

Makido even presented a judgement given by the ECOWAS Court in Abuja against the Hate Speech bill in November last year to the panelists.

According to him, since there is a subsisting judgement against the Hate Speech bill, it was Illegal for the Senate to continue entertaining the bill in form of consideration.

However, the sponsors of the bills at separate interviews with journalists after the town hall meeting, vowed to continue the push for their consideration and possible passage, saying “the bills are not about them but about unity and peaceful coexistence of Nigerians.”

The Town Hall meeting was declared open by the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, in his capacity as Special Guest of Honour.

Lawan said that the National Assembly was open to suggestions from Nigerians on the best ways to tackle the menace of hate speech and fake flying on the social media.